To Tweet, Or Not to Tweet -- The reviews for HAMLET'S BLACKBERRY by William Powers are coming in, pro and con. Here's the WSJ:
To Tweet, Or Not to Tweet
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable—at times—seem all the digital distractions of this world, writes DAVID HARSANYI in the Wall Street Journal on June 30, 2010 of this Internet Age
A catastrophic event unfolds. A seemingly healthy professional embarks on his daily commute, only to come to the frightening realization that his battered and beloved BlackBerry lies vulnerable and unused in a distant corner of his home. An unwholesome panic descends. No matter how far away from home he is, and no matter how needless the device may be in a practical sense, he is impelled to hightail it back to his house and reconnect with the world.
William Powers offers this beleaguered book reviewer (DH), and everyone else who has faced a similar ordeal, a roadmap to contentment in "Hamlet's BlackBerry," a rewarding guide to finding a "quiet" and "spacious" place "where the mind can wander free."
Based on the author's much-discussed 2006 National Journal essay, "Hamlet's BlackBerry: Why Paper is Eternal" (and how I wish that were true), the former Washington Post staff writer argues that the distractions of manic connectivity often lead to a lack of productivity and, if allowed to permeate too deeply, to an assault on the beauty and meaning of everyday life.
Obviously this is not a unique grievance, or a fresh one: As Mr. Powers acknowledges, concerns about the deleterious effects of a new world supplanting the old go back to Plato. But there has been an awful lot of grousing about digital distraction lately—Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains" came out just a few weeks ago—and it is easy to feel skeptical of worrywarts agonizing about Americans "wrestling" with too many choices and "coping" with the effects of too much Internet use.
There is simply too much good that comes of innovation for that sort of Luddite hand-wringing. The farmer a century ago who pulled himself off the straw mattress at 4 a.m. to till the earth so his family wouldn't starve led a fairly straightforward, undistracted existence, but he was almost certainly miserable most of the time. And he probably regarded the arrival of radio as a sort of miracle. In discussions of this type I tend to rely on the wisdom of P.J. O'Rourke: "Civilization is an enormous improvement on the lack thereof."
But even a jaded reader is likely to be won over by "Hamlet's BlackBerry." It convincingly argues that we've ceded too much of our existence to what he calls Digital Maximalism. Less scold and more philosopher, Mr. Powers certainly bemoans the spread of technology in our lives, but he also offers a compelling discussion of our dependence on contraptions and of the ways in which we might free ourselves from them. I buy it. I need quiet time.
To accept "Hamlet's BlackBerry" is to accept that we are super busy. "It's staggering," writes Mr. Powers, "how many balls we keep in the air each day and how few we drop. We're so busy, sometimes it seems as though busyness itself is the point." Though I don't find all that ball-juggling as staggering as the author, and I don't know anyone who acts as if chaos is the point of it all, it would be foolish not to concede that our lives have become far more complex than ever before.
View Full Image
Hamlet's Blackberry
By William Powers
Harper, 267 pages, $24.99
What can be done? What should be done? Mr. Powers's answer is, in essence: Just say no. Try to cultivate a quieter or at least more focused life. The most persuasive and entertaining parts of "Hamlet's BlackBerry" are found in Mr. Powers's efforts to practice what he preaches. (Most of us, it should be noted, do not have the option of moving from a dense Washington, D.C., suburb to an idyllic Cape Cod town to grapple with the demons of gadgetry addiction.) His skeptical wife and kids agree that if they're allowed to use their laptops during the week, they will turn the computers off on the weekend. Mr. Powers discovers that friends and relatives quickly adapt to the family's digital disconnect (they call it the "Internet Sabbath"). The family spends more time face-to-face instead of Facebooking.
Mr. Powers proposes that we take into account the "need to connect outward, as well as the opposite need for time and space apart." It is a powerful desire, the balanced life. Most of us yearn for it. Neither technology nor connectivity is injurious unless we allow them to consume us. Mr. Powers argues that letting life turn into a blizzard of snapshots—that's what all those screenviews amount to, after all—isn't enough. We would be happier freeing ourselves for genuine, unfiltered experience and then reflecting on it, not tweeting about it. The busy person will pause here to nod in sympathy.
I'm not sure that many of us have found that spacious place where our minds can wander free of technological intrusions, of beeps and buttons and emails and tweets, but "Hamlet's BlackBerry" makes the case that we can—or should—find it. Recently, while watching some hypnotically dreadful movie, I instinctively reached for my BlackBerry to fetch some worthless biographical information about a third-rate actress that would do no more than clog my brain still further.
Then I remembered something in Mr. Powers's book—which takes its title from a scene in "Hamlet" when the prince refers to an Elizabethan technical advance: specially coated paper or parchment that could be wiped clean. A book that included heavy, blank, erasable pages made from such paper—an almanac, for example—was called a table. "Yea, from the table of my memory / I'll wipe away all trivial fond records," Hamlet says. Or, as Mr. Powers paraphrases: " 'Don't worry,' Hamlet's nifty device whispered, 'you don't have to know everything. Just the few things that matter.' "
[Mr. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist for the Denver Post.]
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable—at times—seem all the digital distractions of this world, writes DAVID HARSANYI in the Wall Street Journal on June 30, 2010 of this Internet Age
A catastrophic event unfolds. A seemingly healthy professional embarks on his daily commute, only to come to the frightening realization that his battered and beloved BlackBerry lies vulnerable and unused in a distant corner of his home. An unwholesome panic descends. No matter how far away from home he is, and no matter how needless the device may be in a practical sense, he is impelled to hightail it back to his house and reconnect with the world.
William Powers offers this beleaguered book reviewer (DH), and everyone else who has faced a similar ordeal, a roadmap to contentment in "Hamlet's BlackBerry," a rewarding guide to finding a "quiet" and "spacious" place "where the mind can wander free."
Based on the author's much-discussed 2006 National Journal essay, "Hamlet's BlackBerry: Why Paper is Eternal" (and how I wish that were true), the former Washington Post staff writer argues that the distractions of manic connectivity often lead to a lack of productivity and, if allowed to permeate too deeply, to an assault on the beauty and meaning of everyday life.
Obviously this is not a unique grievance, or a fresh one: As Mr. Powers acknowledges, concerns about the deleterious effects of a new world supplanting the old go back to Plato. But there has been an awful lot of grousing about digital distraction lately—Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains" came out just a few weeks ago—and it is easy to feel skeptical of worrywarts agonizing about Americans "wrestling" with too many choices and "coping" with the effects of too much Internet use.
There is simply too much good that comes of innovation for that sort of Luddite hand-wringing. The farmer a century ago who pulled himself off the straw mattress at 4 a.m. to till the earth so his family wouldn't starve led a fairly straightforward, undistracted existence, but he was almost certainly miserable most of the time. And he probably regarded the arrival of radio as a sort of miracle. In discussions of this type I tend to rely on the wisdom of P.J. O'Rourke: "Civilization is an enormous improvement on the lack thereof."
But even a jaded reader is likely to be won over by "Hamlet's BlackBerry." It convincingly argues that we've ceded too much of our existence to what he calls Digital Maximalism. Less scold and more philosopher, Mr. Powers certainly bemoans the spread of technology in our lives, but he also offers a compelling discussion of our dependence on contraptions and of the ways in which we might free ourselves from them. I buy it. I need quiet time.
To accept "Hamlet's BlackBerry" is to accept that we are super busy. "It's staggering," writes Mr. Powers, "how many balls we keep in the air each day and how few we drop. We're so busy, sometimes it seems as though busyness itself is the point." Though I don't find all that ball-juggling as staggering as the author, and I don't know anyone who acts as if chaos is the point of it all, it would be foolish not to concede that our lives have become far more complex than ever before.
View Full Image
Hamlet's Blackberry
By William Powers
Harper, 267 pages, $24.99
What can be done? What should be done? Mr. Powers's answer is, in essence: Just say no. Try to cultivate a quieter or at least more focused life. The most persuasive and entertaining parts of "Hamlet's BlackBerry" are found in Mr. Powers's efforts to practice what he preaches. (Most of us, it should be noted, do not have the option of moving from a dense Washington, D.C., suburb to an idyllic Cape Cod town to grapple with the demons of gadgetry addiction.) His skeptical wife and kids agree that if they're allowed to use their laptops during the week, they will turn the computers off on the weekend. Mr. Powers discovers that friends and relatives quickly adapt to the family's digital disconnect (they call it the "Internet Sabbath"). The family spends more time face-to-face instead of Facebooking.
Mr. Powers proposes that we take into account the "need to connect outward, as well as the opposite need for time and space apart." It is a powerful desire, the balanced life. Most of us yearn for it. Neither technology nor connectivity is injurious unless we allow them to consume us. Mr. Powers argues that letting life turn into a blizzard of snapshots—that's what all those screenviews amount to, after all—isn't enough. We would be happier freeing ourselves for genuine, unfiltered experience and then reflecting on it, not tweeting about it. The busy person will pause here to nod in sympathy.
I'm not sure that many of us have found that spacious place where our minds can wander free of technological intrusions, of beeps and buttons and emails and tweets, but "Hamlet's BlackBerry" makes the case that we can—or should—find it. Recently, while watching some hypnotically dreadful movie, I instinctively reached for my BlackBerry to fetch some worthless biographical information about a third-rate actress that would do no more than clog my brain still further.
Then I remembered something in Mr. Powers's book—which takes its title from a scene in "Hamlet" when the prince refers to an Elizabethan technical advance: specially coated paper or parchment that could be wiped clean. A book that included heavy, blank, erasable pages made from such paper—an almanac, for example—was called a table. "Yea, from the table of my memory / I'll wipe away all trivial fond records," Hamlet says. Or, as Mr. Powers paraphrases: " 'Don't worry,' Hamlet's nifty device whispered, 'you don't have to know everything. Just the few things that matter.' "
[Mr. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist for the Denver Post.]
posted by dan at 8:30 PM
4 Comments:
My friend Bill Powers’ book goes on sale today. He sent me an advance copy and it came just before we were leaving for the beach. I left a vacaton message on my gmail account that said I was observing an Internet sabbath inspired by Bill’s book.
I have been struggling with disconnection for years. I want to be offline and in the world but my email beckons me like the Sirens of Greek mythology, luring me back against my better judgment. I get too many emails for someone who makes as little money as I do and wields even less power. Nonetheless, I’m overwhelmed with emails and lately it’s only gotten worse. I have a contract right now with a curriculum design company and am obliged to use their computer and their email system for the work I do on their behalf. During the week, in my little home office, I always have two laptops fired up with what feels and sounds like dualing email accounts. The ping of each new email has begun to grate on my nerves, a digital reminder that my time is not mine. I’m Lucille Ball on the digital assembly line, unable to keep up with the candy bon bons coming down the conveyor belt. As I was reading Bill’s book I recognized myself when he was talking about a state of being that Seneca called “the hunted mind.”
Bill’s book is a balm to this “hunted mind” syndrome. He reminds his readers that technology is a wonderful thing but that we need to take control and not become tools of our tools. I’ve let email, Twitter, FB and all the rest dictate my thoughts, my time, my priorities. Bill offers solutions and a philosophy for living meaningfully and deeply in this digital age.
For starters, I won’t be answering email so quickly or checking it so often. I might even ignore some email – certain requests and demands can hover endlessly in cyberspace as I learn to stop surrendering myself so easily to what other people think I should be doing — people who don’t sign my paychecks at least.
Now click here, buy Bill’s book, and then turn off your computer and contemplate creating something real, your next meal, your next poem, your next garden…
–Barbara Feinman
Posted by feinmanb
Do you check for email several times an hour? When you go to quickly look up something online, do you find that as long as you're there you may as well check the news, the stock market, and that blog you like? Do you get antsy if your smart phone is out of reach for more than a few minutes?
Join the club, my friend. I'm addicted and so are you. In a nutshell, author William Powers says we must use the internet, social networks, and cellphones to our advantage and resist becoming slaves to them.
Powers examines how we can be connected, without being too connected. Our addiction to being connected is robbing us of productivity and creativity. But we can't quit cold turkey, surely that would be just as bad, if it's even possible.
The book is quite entertaining and thought provoking, especially the end, where Powers outlines his own family's experiment in breaking away from the yoke of the internet. They use their laptops and smartphones during the week, but turn everything off on Friday night and leave it off until Monday morning. It's hard at first, but they are surprised at how quickly they adapt, and at how quickly their friends and colleagues adapt to their not being available every minute. They find that assignments and emails can almost always wait until Monday. They enjoy the time together as a family, and individually they get more done and manage their time better.
Powers uses history and philosophy to make his arguments and put things into perspective. The "Hamlet's Blackberry" of the title is what was called a writing table or table book and consisted of some plaster-covered pages bound in a pocket-sized book. A metal stylus came with it and was used to write down notes or lists. The pages could be sponged off like a slate and used over and over again. This was cutting edge technology in Shakespeare's time, a time before pencils and ballpoint pens were available.
The title originally comes from a long essay Powers wrote several years ago. In it, he looks at the evolution and future of paper. In this book, he's expanded the discussion to connectedness, which is why the book was to be titled Disconnectopia, but I think Hamlet's Blackberry is more inviting and memorable.
Good Morning America did a seg on the book about digitally addicted families and how to pull ourselves away from the screen. Mr Powers was interviewed, on national TV, coast to coast, talking about his family’s ritual of disconnected weekends – what they call an Internet Sabbath – and other aspects of his book.At the end of the piece, GMA correspondent Claire Shipman, speaking from what appeared to be her kitchen, said the Internet Sabbath sounded like just the thing for overconnected families, including her own, and here is the transcript, Tasnim, who did not do her homework, tsk tsk: "“Do you have a problem? Are you missing important events? Do you miss your electronic gadgets long after you’ve put them away? You might need an Internet Sabbath. And I’ll tell you . . . doing this piece made me realize that our family certainly needs one.”
VGEAS, spot on with your post. I got a good laugh about the connect to ABC to learn how to disconnect. I am from the generation that when in college they came out with the Texas Instruments first calculator. It was huge by today's standards and cost $500. I could out calculate them with a slide rule or pencil and paper. I can still smoke most people using a calculator with my pencil because it is easy to use and you can't push the wrong button.
TaxpayingVoter52 Jun-30 I thought that electronics were to make our lives easy so we could enjoy life. Now I see it has become an addiction that now causes lives to dissappear. They would all go off to their corners and hide behind the electronic curtain. No social interaction, no face time with friends, just texts and tweets. Just like the kid in SF said. he would have hi electronic on when he was in class hiding it behined the book he was supposed to read. I have grand nieces and nephews that will text each other from their respective bedrooms, next to each other because it was easier than walking the 20 feet. Wait untill the net crashes and the electronics go down, people will be useless because the machine that does all of their thinking is dead. Soon people will need to have their food chewed for them, just like now with electronics doing their thinking for them.
TaxpayingVoter52 Jun-30 This whole tech thing is out of hand. I see people walking and crossing busy streets looking down with Ipod headphones in both ears and risking getting killed because they aren't paying attention. What music is worth dying for? I grudgingly got a cell phone for "emergencies" but have yet to have one. LOL Most of the time I forget to turn it on and I will NOT answer it while I'm having a conversation or a meal with another human being or while driving. I don't have a laptop or an Ipod and don't feel I need one. Not interested in an Ipad either. I enjoy sitting quietly and reading a real tangible hardcover or paperback book. Or just being quiet with no disturbances so I can think. These gadgets are just to separate you from your money. We don't "need" everything Best Buy sells.
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