Sherry Turkle has a nice piece in The New York Times about the dangers of “The Documented Life” that fits right into some of my thinking about the need to live more of a plugged/unplugged life. Here’s a key passage:
“Technology doesn’t just do things for us. It does things to us, changing not just what we do but who we are. The selfie makes us accustomed to putting ourselves and those around us “on pause” in order to document our lives. It is an extension of how we have learned to put our conversations “on pause” when we send or receive a text, an image, an email, a call. When you get accustomed to a life of stops and starts, you get less accustomed to reflecting on where you are and what you are thinking.
We don’t experience interruptions as disruptions anymore. But they make it hard to settle into serious conversations with ourselves and with other people because emotionally, we keep ourselves available to be taken away from everything.”
Except for a strange little aside that perpetuates the myth that President Obama was being rude taking a “selfie” at Nelson Mandela’s funeral, it’s well worth reading the whole thing.