Category: digital technology
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The secret to thriving in a noisy world
Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism The key to thriving in our high-tech world is to spend much less time on social media. This is Cal Newport’s persuasive message in his Digital Minimalism: Choosing a focused life in a noisy world (Penguin Business, 2019). Newport is a succinct, logical writer who presents irrefutable evidence for his argument…
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Tools for self-destruction – Max Fisher’s The Chaos Machine
The manipulation of neural pathways The weekly radio co-hosting preparation was swallowing too much time and compelling me to spend most of it on current affairs. I’m doing it only once a month now. Without the radio over-commitment, I limit current affairs consumption to basic knowledge of what’s going on. What’s going on is always…
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Lost Focus – Johann Hari’s feasible solutions to our burning problems
Tsunamis of information are drowning us We’ve lost our ability to focus. Tsunamis of information are coming at us, drenching us every minute of every waking hour. We can’t keep up with it, mentally or emotionally. What we sacrifice when we try is depth. Not to mention sanity, peace of mind and our democracy. In…
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Meeting the sunlight: taking time to think
The picturesque town of Mallaig is on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands. I was waiting for a coffee at the Mallaig Tea Rooms when I saw a framed scroll on the wall above the little coal fire. It read: ‘These are times of more convenience but less time, more knowledge but less judgement,…
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Measuring our lives
In Seneca’s time, ‘Elite, literate Romans were discovering the great paradox of information: the more of it that’s available, the harder it is to be truly knowledgeable. It was impossible to process it all in a thoughtful way. So there was a tendency to graze, skim the surface, look for shortcuts.’ (William Powers, Hamlet’s Blackberry,…