In case you don't know, Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" and "Everything is Illuminated".
I consider him a modern-day great in an era of weak authors, an opinion I share with many others. Some consider him an overrated hack. Whatever your opinion is of his work, I found this article very interesting and thought provoking.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/op...pagewanted=all
The article is titled "How Not to Be Alone" and touches on a subject that I see more and more people considering every day - is technology further isolating us while at the same time making the world smaller?
This topic has been discussed a few times before on this forum, and I've had conversations similar to it countless times with like-minded friends. However, none of us could describe what feels "wrong" in the advancement of technology quite as eloquently as Foer.
So, take a minute to read the article if you will and hopefully it will stimulate some discussion on an increasingly relevant issue in modern society.
I'm not sure how much I can quote, but I will quote a small portion that gives a general gist of the short (2 page) article.
I consider him a modern-day great in an era of weak authors, an opinion I share with many others. Some consider him an overrated hack. Whatever your opinion is of his work, I found this article very interesting and thought provoking.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/op...pagewanted=all
The article is titled "How Not to Be Alone" and touches on a subject that I see more and more people considering every day - is technology further isolating us while at the same time making the world smaller?
This topic has been discussed a few times before on this forum, and I've had conversations similar to it countless times with like-minded friends. However, none of us could describe what feels "wrong" in the advancement of technology quite as eloquently as Foer.
So, take a minute to read the article if you will and hopefully it will stimulate some discussion on an increasingly relevant issue in modern society.
I'm not sure how much I can quote, but I will quote a small portion that gives a general gist of the short (2 page) article.
Quote:
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Everyone wants his parent’s, or friend’s, or partner’s undivided attention — even if many of us, especially children, are getting used to far less. Simone Weil wrote, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” By this definition, our relationships to the world, and to one another, and to ourselves, are becoming increasingly miserly. |
Quote:
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We often use technology to save time, but increasingly, it either takes the saved time along with it, or makes the saved time less present, intimate and rich. I worry that the closer the world gets to our fingertips, the further it gets from our hearts. It’s not an either/or — being “anti-technology” is perhaps the only thing more foolish than being unquestioningly “pro-technology” — but a question of balance that our lives hang upon. |