I made it two months and one day without an iPhone. For those keeping score, that’s ten months shy of my original goal. In that original post, I wrote: I — like most people I observe in waiting rooms and in line at Starbucks — kill little bits of time with my head down, the [...]
This weekend, my wife and I drove to Little Rock for a wedding. As I mentioned on Twitter last night, the groom is one of my oldest friends. In fact, we met in second grade and have been close ever since. It was a blast seeing him marry an awesome woman. Being in any wedding [...]
Ian Kerner at CNN: Technology allows us to be constantly connected to the world, but it can also make us even more disconnected from each other. In fact, two recent studies show that cell phones can have a negative impact on close relationships. Researchers from the University of Essex found that people who engaged in [...]
Thomas Brand leaves his iPhone at work in the evenings: This division keeps me on task at work where I need to stay connected, and attentive to the people around me when I am at home. Not everyone can do this. My job pays for the my work phone, and by running to and from [...]
Patrick Rhone: That 2013 will be the year of opt-out. That disconnection will become hipster cool. More and more people will be replacing smart phones with dumb ones, digital with analog, social with solitude, sharing with journaling, etc. Nick Heer, in response: Technology is like food: have everything in moderation, and don’t go overboard too [...]
I’ve never enjoyed the holidays the way I think other people do. If we were to spend some time on a couch talking about this, I’m sure there are lots of reasons that would come during my session. Perhaps I could blame my parents, or my son’s cancer. Maybe it is because I struggled with [...]
Adam Brault: I’ve realized how Twitter has made me break up my thoughts into tiny, incomplete, pieces—lots of hanging ideas, lots of incomplete relationships, punctuated by all manner of hanging threads and half-forked paths. I am perfectly fine with unfinished work—in fact, I doubt I’ll ever be a better finisher than I am a starter. [...]
David Zax at MIT Technology Review has been without an iPhone for a week: That’s not to say that I haven’t enjoyed some benefits from being iPhone-less. It’s true that “spare change” time–the time waiting in line to order, or waiting for the subway to come–now gets funneled into thinking about projects I’d rather be [...]
Editor’s Note: This essay originally appeared in the third issue of The Magazine. My thanks to Glenn and Marco for giving me a shot at being in such a great publication. My worst interaction with technology most days had been a sick Windows laptop, and my best involved monkeying with a new audio system. Most [...]
Peter Cohen at the Loop: This past fall I got rid of my iPhone and replaced it with a “dumb” phone. It can make calls. It can, after a fashion, produce text messages. That’s it. There are a lot of upsides. Peter’s experience with using a dumb phone closely mirrors mine so far.
Martin Lindstrom: But should we really characterize the intense consumer devotion to the iPhone as an addiction? A recent experiment that I carried out using neuroimaging technology suggests that drug-related terms like “addiction” and “fix” aren’t as scientifically accurate as a word we use to describe our most cherished personal relationships. That word is “love.” [...]
Mike Snider, USA TODAY: Nearly one-third (32%) of the heaviest adopters of social networks — those ages 18 to 24— connect with sites such as Facebook and Twitter in the bathroom. The new data, from NM Incite, offer a glimpse into the growing devotion that Americans have to social networks. Time spent on social networks [...]
In an interview with Om Malik: I am over laptops and the posture that comes with them. I am coding a lot less, so I use my computers a lot less. I still want to simplify even further and carry just one device. So, I want to try the iPad Mini with cellular antenna as [...]
I listen to a lot of podcasts, mainly in my car, or while riding my bike. While Instacast HD is awesome, using my iPad mini in either of these locations is not. After digging out an old HP-branded iPod, I discovered it’s clickwheel had gone to the great parts bin in the sky. So, after [...]
Matthew Alexander: Stephen, much like Paul Miller, is attempting to explore the technological trajectory we’ve collectively chosen to follow from an intensely personal perspective. And yet, much unlike Paul Miller, Stephen has sustained his ties to the technology he relies upon for the sake of realism. [...] I suspect that, regardless of the negativity swirling [...]
