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I don’t think that e-readers are going to be a cure-all for everyone in need of cultivating better and longer attention. But I do think that my experience suggests that it’s not reasonable to think of “technology”—in the usual vaguely pejorative meaning of that word—as the enemy of reading. The codex is itself a technology, and a supremely sophisticated one, but even digital electronic technologies vary tremendously: e-readers are by any measure far less distracting than an iPad or a laptop. It’s at least possible for new technologies to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction
Alan Jacobs
If it is foolish to think that we can carry with us all the good things from the past—from our personal past or that of our culture—while leaving behind all the unwanted baggage, it is a counsel of despair and, I think, another kind of foolishness to think that if we leave behind the errors and miseries of the past, we must also leave behind everything that gave that world its savor. Wisdom lies in discernment, and utopianism and nostalgia alike are ways of abandoning discernment.
Breaking Bread With the Dead
Alan Jacobs
Our main interests are: Does this thought offer you anything useful? Can it help you make the most out of life? If you let this thought guide you, will it take you toward the life you want?
The Happiness Trap
Russ Harris
...catch up on these, and many more highlights
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