The Joy of Missing Out: Finding Balance in a Wired World

Our technological advancements have one trajectory: up. Up the corporate ladder, up in social status, up and away from our surroundings, our physical demands, from the bore of the everyday. We are headed up, yet the happiest people in the world are the Danes sitting down to have dinner. Editor’s note: The following is an […]

On Entrapment In a Media Era

Ours is a world of gorging
Half blind.
Looks alright, take a bite,
Leave it behind.

On Smart Phones and the Death of Conversation: A Photo Essay

“I started to photograph people in company on their phones as there was a certain symmetry to them and it appealed on a visual level, but as I continued I noticed an inherent sadness to the proceedings,” writes Babycakes Romero, in his short introduction to his photo essay titled “The Death of Conversation.” He compares […]

Look Up

“I have 422 friends, yet I’m lonely.” This is for all of us who need a reminder to shut our computers and look up from our smart phones, but who respond better to advice when it rhymes. Written, performed and directed by Gary Turk, who describe his video as ” a lesson taught to us through a love story, in […]

Louis C.K.: Smartphones Cover Existential Loneliness

Stand-up comedian Louis C. K. was on the late night show Conan, and he explains why he doesn’t want his kids to have smart phones. His incredible, nearly 5 minutes speech touches a range of related issues, from how we learn empathy to how we deal with existential loneliness.

Hearing Bly Read

His words bubbled from the speakers as he bantered with the host, his voice coffee-warm with a Norwegian froth; he began reading in a tone one might use when granting deepest confidence— interrupting himself, making mid-poem commentary, repeating favorite stanzas—   and I knew again that I was fatherless, and I felt like a blind […]

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