Hungry. That was the word that hooked me. That’s how my brain felt to me, too. Hungry. Needy. Itchy. Once it wanted information. But then it was distraction. And then, with social media, validation. A drumbeat of: You exist. You are seen.
This really hit home: Ezra Klein, echoing Marshall McLuhan, on how the medium does shape us, not just the message.
Interesting study showing that the simple presence within eyesight of your phone reduces your brain's available cognitive capacity.
First he was never for a moment, in all 27 years, bored. He was never lonely. He said that he felt almost the opposite of that. He said he felt utterly and intricately connected to everything else in the world. It was difficult for him to tell where his body ended, and the woods began. He said he felt this utter communion with nature and with the outside world.
In a world where people start thumbing phones in queues, trains and anywhere else they fear being alone with their thoughts, this would probably be torture. I'm not ready to head into the woods for 27 years but I increasingly enjoy being untethered from the grid.
