A lot of people \u2014 when they hear people talk about their fears about technology and where we\u2019re headed and what it\u2019s doing to our sociology and what it\u2019s doing to our lives, some people will respond, \u201cIt\u2019s just a tool. I don\u2019t understand what\u2019s the problem.\u201d That feeling that like, \u201cWe\u2019re in control. The computer\u2019s not in control, so why are you freaking out about this stuff?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nA couple of people while I was working on the book have called me a Luddite, but I think people who use that word \u201cLuddite\u201d actually don\u2019t know what a Luddite is, because if you look at what the Luddites really were historically, they weren\u2019t so much anti-technology as they were pro-human. They were actually fighting for workers\u2019 rights at an age when mechanical tools were being used by a manufacturing elite to really trample human rights. So I feel like I am in the Luddite position in that truer sense, because it isn\u2019t about technology good or technology bad, and I would never take that stance. It\u2019s just technology is a dangerous, beautiful tool that we have; you\u2019re right. And we need to become intelligent about the way that we use those tools. I think that we\u2019ve gone through this very giddy ride of absorbing new communication technologies, and what we\u2019re hitting now is a point where we have to start becoming intelligent about our media diets in the same way that we had to become intelligent about our food diets after we got a super abundance of sugar and fats at our disposal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Looking forward to reading Michael Harris’s book.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”wInG9qIiyZXfe5IWkw9gGzmkXV2eQ06T”] A COUPLE of decades into it, we’re still figuring out what the Internet is doing to us, as individuals and as a society. A fascinating interview with the author of a new book, The End of Absence, get at this in a nuanced way. Author Michael Harris talks about the difference between the\u00a0digital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,32,34,649],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-books","7":"category-internet","8":"category-literary","9":"category-salon","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2219"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2234,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2219\/revisions\/2234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>, the importance of solitude and contemplation, what’s happening to our memories, and the value\u00a0of “fasting” from the Internet. He refers to the Internet taking us back to “stereotypically adolescent frame of mind where you\u2019re constantly hoping for the approval of others instead of finding it from your own heart or own sense of self.”<\/p>\n