“dopamine squirt”: John Ratey, associate professor of psychiatry, Harvard University, quoted in Matt Richtel, “Driven to Distraction,” New York Times, July 19, 2009, p. A1.
writes psychologist Steven Pinker: Steven Pinker, “Will the Mind Figure Out How the Brain Works?” Time, April 10, 2000.
Antonio Damasio: Antonio R. Damasio, “How the Brain Creates the Mind,” in Best of the Brain from Scientific American, ed. Floyd E. Bloom (New York: Dana Press, 2007), p. 61.
technologies of the self: Michel Foucault, “Technologies of the Self,” in Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, ed. Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), p. 16.
“Turn off your computer”: Eric Schmidt’s commencement speech was widely reported on in the news media, for example: Kathy Matheson, “Google CEO Urges Grads: ‘Turn off your computer,’” Associated Press, May 18, 2009.
CHAPTER 5: WALKING TO HEAVEN
I relied mostly on the translation of Plato’s Phaedrus by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff in Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997). All quotes are from this version, except in two places where I preferred Benjamin Jowett’s nineteenth-century translation. The Jowett quotes are from Symposium and Phaedrus (New York: Dover, 1993). I made these choices based not on the faithfulness of the translation (I don’t know ancient Greek) but on the meaning in English and how it related to my particular topic. Unless I specifically cite Jowett, all citations of Phaedrus refer to the Nehamas-Woodruff version. There is one word, “scroll,” that does not appear in either of these translations but does in some others, and I use it for the reasons explained below.
a young man: According to some sources, Phaedrus would have been closer to middle age at the time the actual conversation took place. Since Socrates calls him a “boy,” I assume here that he was in fact young.
“Phaedrus, my friend!”: Plato, Phaedrus, trans. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff, in Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997), p. 507.
“it’s more refreshing”: Ibid., p. 507.
“you never even set foot”: Ibid., p. 510.
“Forgive me, my friend”: Ibid., p. 510.
In fact, this is the only one: John M. Cooper, introduction to ibid., p. 506.
“They invented talking”: E. H. Gombrich, A Little History of the World, trans. Caroline Mustill (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005), p. 7.
“the greatest inventors of all time”: Ibid., p. 5.
“He denied that he had discovered”: John M. Cooper, introduction to Plato: Complete Works, p. xix.
Some translations: Though both the Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff translation and the Benjamin Jowett use “book,” other translations use “scroll.” I prefer the latter because the word “book” brings to mind the familiar codex of our own time, which wouldn’t be invented for several hundred years.
“the place beyond heaven”: Phaedrus, p. 525.
“is inevitably a painfully”: Ibid., p. 524.
“trampling and striking”: Ibid., p. 526.
“pure knowledge”: Ibid., p. 525.
“The result is terribly noisy”: Ibid., p. 526.
“There’s something really divine”: Ibid., p. 517.
He tells a story: Ibid., pp. 551–52.
“remember it from the inside”: Ibid., p. 552.
“[T]hey will be tiresome”: Plato, Symposium and Phaedrus, trans. Benjamin Jowett (New York: Dover, 1993), p. 88.
“stand there as if”: Phaedrus, p. 552.
“continues to signify”: Ibid., p. 552.
“lovely, pure and clear”: Ibid., p 509.
“this thing we are carrying around”: Ibid., p. 528.
“Beloved Pan”: Plato, Symposium and Phaedrus, trans. Jowett, p. 92.
CHAPTER 6: THE SPA OF THE MIND
All quotations from Seneca’s letters to Lucilius are from Letters from a Stoic, translated by Robin Campbell. After the first reference below, I refer to this book simply as Letters.
He was born: Biographical information about Seneca comes from two sources: Miriam T. Griffin, Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), and Robin Campbell’s introduction to his translation of Seneca’s letters.
“the real master of the world”: Pierre Grimal, The Civilization of Rome (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1963), p. 497.
“It is not the man”: Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, trans. Robin Campbell (London: Penguin Books, 2004), p. 34.
“from all directions”: Letters, p. 125.
“You ask me”: Ibid., p. 41.
“the restless energy”: Ibid., p. 36.
“All this hurrying”: Ibid., p. 189.
“The man who spends his time”: Ibid., p. 186.
A Roman bookseller: Harold A. Innis, Empire and Communications, rev. Mary Q. Innis (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972), p. 106.
“skip from one to another”: Letters, p. 33.
“Food that is vomited up”: Ibid., p. 33.
Seneca tells the story: Ibid., pp. 73–75.
“Measure your life”: Ibid., p. 160.
“It’s about treating”: Winifred Gallagher, Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life (New York: Penguin Press, 2009), p. 53.
“After running over”: Letters, p. 34.
“I cannot for the life of me”: Ibid., p. 109.
“Picture me”: Ibid.
street sounds: Ibid., pp. 109–10.
“I swear I no more notice”: Ibid., p. 110.
“able at will”: Ibid., p. 186.
“inward detachment”: Ibid., p. 112.
What Seneca describes: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper Perennial, 1991), pp. 2–6 and p. 49.
Queen Elizabeth I: Robin Campbell, introduction to Letters, p. 25, and related note, p. 238.
Gadgets now exist: One example is a downloadable add-on called Readability, http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/ readability.
CHAPTER 7: LITTLE MIRRORS
“Even better”: Anita Hamilton, “The iPhone: Second Time’s a Charm,” www.time.com, July 14, 2008.
“the ‘Jesus phone’”: John Boudreau, “IPhone 3G: ‘Worth the Wait,’” www.mercurynews.com, July 12, 2008.
“The store’s entrance was besieged”: Connie Guglielmo and Pavel Alpeyev, “Apple’s New IPhone Debut Draws Crowds, Helicopters,” www.bloomberg.com, July 11, 2008.
Saint Augustine: Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading (New York: Viking, 1996), pp. 41–51.
“oral skill”: Ibid., p. 47.
In 1432: My account of the Aachen pilgrimages relies principally on two sources: John Man, Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002), and Albert Kapr, Johann Gutenberg: The Man and His Invention, trans. Douglas Martin (Aldershot, England: Scolar Press, 1996).
“as if it were”: Man, Gutenberg, p. 63.
“You could head for home”: Ibid.
“no doubt command”: Victor Scholderer, Johann Gutenberg: The Inventor of Printing (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1963), p. 10.
A man who saw them: Manguel, A History of Reading, pp. 133–34.
In his recent book: Robert Darnton, The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future (New York: Public Affairs, 2009), pp. xiv–xv.
“[I]t has proven”: Ibid., p. 68.
“an early capitalist”: Man, Gutenberg, p. 8.
“Closing the book”: The quoted lines are from Stafford’s poem “An Afternoon in the Stacks.” www.williamstafford.org.
CHAPTER 8: HAMLET’S BLACKBERRY
All quotations from Shakespeare in this chapter are from Stephen Greenblatt, general ed., The Norton Shakespeare (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997). Since these are well known, I have not included specific references for each one. All notes citing Greenblatt refer to his Shakespeare biogr
aphy, Will in the World.
“the London crowd”: Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004), p. 169.
“the livid and decaying heads”: Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper (New York: Modern Library, 2003), p. 64.
“the poet of the human race”: Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Shakespeare; or, the Poet,” from Representative Men in Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays & Lectures, ed. Joel Porte (New York: Library of America, 1983), p. 717.
In certain cases, accused criminals: Greenblatt, Will in the World, p. 171.
those who lived through: See Ann Blair, “Reading Strategies for Coping with Information Overload, ca. 1550–1700,” Journal of the History of Ideas 64 (2003), pp. 11–28; and Blair’s forthcoming Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information Before the Modern Age (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010).
“collecting pieces of poetry”: Peter Stallybrass, Roger Chartier, J. Franklin Mowery, and Heather Wolfe, “Hamlet’s Tables and the Technologies of Writing in Renaissance England,” Shakespeare Quarterly 55, no. 4 (2004), pp. 380–419.
Users spoke effusively: All material about the popularity of tables, including the Montaigne and Sharpham quotations, is from ibid.
“Time has given the hinge”: Paul Duguid discusses the hinge in “Material Matters: Aspects of the Past and the Futurology of the Book,” in The Future of the Book, ed. Geoffrey Nunberg (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 63–102.
“The advent of printing”: Peter Stallybrass, Michael Mendle, and Heather Wolfe, text of brochure for “Technologies in the Age of Print,” exhibit at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., September 28, 2006–February 17, 2007.
“To make cleane your Tables”: Ibid.
embodied interaction: On embodiment and technology, I am indebted to the work of Abigail J. Sellen and Richard H. R. Harper, the authors of The Myth of the Paperless Office (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003); Moin Rahman of the Motorola Corporation; Tom Djajadiningrat of Philips Design; and Professor Kees Overbeeke of Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands.
“intense representation of inwardness”: Greenblatt, Will in the World, p. 323.
CHAPTER 9: INVENTING YOUR LIFE
For background information about Benjamin Franklin’s life and times, I relied on three sources: Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin; Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life; and Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin. Any reference specific to one of these books is noted below.
“Withdraw it even for a day”: Sue Shellenbarger, “A Day Without Email Is Like…,” Wall Street Journal, October 11, 2007, p. D1.
“One of the fundamental sentiments”: Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), p. 50.
On the long voyage: The story of the card cheat and resulting journal entry are from Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin (New York: Viking Press, 1938), pp. 61–62.
“I have never fixed”: Ibid., p. 63.
two fictional dialogues: Dialogue excerpts are from ibid., pp. 83–87.
“Franklin’s powers”: Ibid., p. 782.
“follow the Example”: Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin in Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography, Poor Richard, and Later Writings, ed. J.A. Leo Lemay (New York: Library of America, 1997), p. 651.
“He made a list”: D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 17.
Intel has devoted: Jonathan B. Spira and Cody Burke, “Intel’s War on Information Overload: A Case Study,” www.basex.com.
“Information overload”: Jonathan B. Spira, “A Day Without E-mail,” www.basexblog.com, December 9, 2009.
“All new tools”: Franklin, Autobiography, p. 378.
CHAPTER 10: THE WALDEN ZONE
“I went to the woods”: Henry David Thoreau, Walden in Walden and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau, ed. Brooks Atkinson (New York: Modern Library, 1937), p. 81.
“I love to be alone”: Ibid., p. 122.
“The mass of men”: Ibid., p. 7.
A brand-new track: Robert D. Richardson, Jr., Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 137–39.
“learned that his heart”: Ibid., p. 136.
“It would be some advantage”: Thoreau, Walden, p. 10.
“it was clear to him”: Richardson, Henry Thoreau, p. 153.
“A slender wire”: “The Telegraph,” unsigned editorial, New York Times, September 14, 1852; accessed online at www.nytimes.com.
“The merchant goes home”: Tom Standage, The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-line Pioneers (New York: Berkley Books, 1999), p. 166.
“But lo!”: Thoreau, Walden, p. 33.
“pretty toys”: Ibid., pp. 46–47.
“As I went under”: Thoreau, journal entry, September 3, 1851, in The Heart of Thoreau’s Journals, ed. Odell Shepard (New York: Dover, 1961), p. 57.
“the very best lead pencils”: Henry Petroski, The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), p. 4.
“We are eager to tunnel”: Thoreau, Walden, p. 47.
“Why should we live”: Ibid., p. 83.
“Surface meets surface”: Thoreau, “Life Without Principle,” in Atkinson, ed., Walden and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau, pp. 723–24.
“the voices”: Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” from Essays: First Series, in Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays & Lectures, ed. Joel Porte (New York: Library of America, 1983), p. 261.
“My life is superficial”: Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Transcendentalist” in Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays & Lectures), p. 205.
“Simplify, simplify”: Thoreau, Walden, p. 82.
“By simplifying our outward lives”: Thoreau, Letters to a Spiritual Seeker, ed. Bradley P. Dean (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006), p. 21.
“I love society”: Thoreau, Walden, p. 127.
“fewer came to see me”: Ibid., p. 130.
“I went about my business”: Ibid., pp. 137–38.
“I had three chairs”: Ibid., p. 127.
“So easy it is”: Ibid., p. 129.
“It is something”: Ibid., p. 81.
Gandhi: Richardson, Henry Thoreau, pp. 316–17.
“a backyard laboratory”: Ibid., p. 171.
“All thoroughly satisfactory”: Dorothy J. Field, The Human House (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1939), p. 17.
“You think that I am”: Thoreau, journal entry, February 8, 1857, in The Heart of Thoreau’s Journals, p. 173.
CHAPTER 11: A COOLER SELF
“involuntarily altered”: Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962), p. 183.
“For life today in America”: Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea (New York: Pantheon Books, 2005), p. 20.
“Man the tool-making animal”: McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy, p. 4.
“inner direction”: Ibid., p. 28.
“a total field of interacting events”: Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995), p. 248.
“Technologies create new environments”: W. Terrence Gordon, “Terrence Gordon on Marshall McLuhan and What He Was Doin’,” The Beaver 84 (2), May 2004.
“instead of being pushed around”: McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy, p. 6.
“My suggestion”: Ibid., p. 35.
“Now the point of this myth”: McLuhan, Understanding Media, p. 41.
“is simply in knowing”: Ibid., p. 15.
McLuhan used: Edgar Allan Poe, “A Descent into the Maelstrom,” in Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, ed. Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America, 1984), pp. 432–48.
“How are we to get out”: Question asked by McLuhan in the film McLuhan’s Wake, as quoted in Brian D. Johnson, “A Prophet Gets Some Honour,” Macle
an’s, December 2, 2002.
“People are cowed”: Kevin McMahon, quoted in Johnson, “A Prophet Gets Some Honour.”
“The hot form excludes”: McLuhan, Understanding Media, p. 23.
a booming market: Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (New York: Bantam Books, 1984); Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (New York: HarperTorch, 2006).
CHAPTER 12: NOT SO BUSY
Condé Nast Traveler magazine: “Get Smart? Testing the iPhone and the Blackberry Bold,” Condé Nast Traveler, June 2009. Follow-up letter from Becca Podell published in the August 2009 issue.
“All your applications”: Online ad for the Palm Pre.
In The Tyranny of E-mail: John Freeman, The Tyranny of E-Mail (New York: Scribner’s, 2009), pp. 208–10.
Educator Lowell Monke: Lowell Monke, “Unplugged Schools,” Orion, September/October 2007, www.orionmagazine.org.
“An eighth-grader”: K. C. Myers, “Have a Skill? Please Share!” Cape Cod Times, October 4, 2009, p. A1.
CHAPTER 13: DISCONNECTOPIA
“Technology is enabling”: Pew Internet & American Life Project, “Networked Families,” www.pewinternet.org, October 19, 2008.
One pattern is: Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein, A Pattern Language (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 828–32 and p. 665.
When Frank Lloyd Wright designed: Ibid., p. 665.
Donald Winnicott: Donald Winnicott, “The Capacity to Be Alone,” in The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment (London: Karnac Books, 1990), pp. 29–36.
We aren’t the only ones: Mark Bittman, “I Need a Virtual Break. No, Really,” www.nytimes.com, March 2, 2008; “King’s Screen Addiction,” The Week, August 7, 2009, p. 10.
“Dancing in the Street”: Alexander, Ishikawa, and Silverstein, A Pattern Language, pp. 319–21.
AFTERWORD: BACK TO THE ROOM
“We’re Killing Communication”: Bill Persky, “We’re Killing Communication,” USA Today, November 2, 2009, p. 9A.
e-mailed me a news story: Alan Scher Zagier, “College Asks Students to Power Down, Contemplate,” Washington Post, December 25, 2009, www.washingtonpost.com.
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