The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. read more

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. Like faxes, computer modems and other modern gadgets that have clogged out lives with phony urgency, cell phones represent the 20th Century's escalation of imaginary need. We didn't need cell phones until we had them. Clearly, cell phones cause not only a breakdown of courtesy, but the atrophy of basic skills.

The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even of printing.

The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even of printing.

The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities.

The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities.

Spending an evening on the World Wide Web is much like sitting down to a dinner of Cheetos, two hours read more

Spending an evening on the World Wide Web is much like sitting down to a dinner of Cheetos, two hours later your fingers are yellow and you're no longer hungry, but you haven't been nourished.

Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing... you are talking about the Internet, you read more

Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing... you are talking about the Internet, you are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers. This doesn't affect two-thirds of the people of the world.

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.

Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating read more

Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things in that enormous immensity.

It's impossible to move, to live, to operate at any level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly meaningless fragments of personal read more

It's impossible to move, to live, to operate at any level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly meaningless fragments of personal information.

Mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, we will read more

Mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the task itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.