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Hamlet's BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age
A crisp, passionately argued answer to the question that everyone who's grown dependent on digital devices is asking: "Where's the rest of my life?"At a time when we're all trying to make sense of our relentlessly connected lives, this revelatory book presents a bold new approach to the digital age. Part intellectual journey, part memoir, Hamlet's BlackBerry sets out to solve what William Powers calls the conundrum of connectedness. Our computers and mobile devices do wonderful things for us. But they also impose an enormous burden, making it harder for us to focus, do our best work, build strong relationships, and find the depth and fulfillment we crave.
Hamlet's BlackBerry argues that we need a new way of thinking, an everyday philosophy for life with screens. To find it, Powers reaches into the past, uncovering a rich trove of ideas that have helped people manage and enjoy their connected lives for thousands of years. New technologies have always brought the mix of excitement and stress that we feel today. Drawing on some of history's most brilliant thinkers, from Plato to Shakespeare to Thoreau, he shows that digital connectedness serves us best when it's balanced by its opposite, disconnectedness.
Using his own life as laboratory and object lesson, Powers demonstrates why this is the moment to revisit our relationship to screens and mobile technologies, and how profound the rewards of doing so can be. Lively, original, and entertaining, Hamlet's BlackBerry will challenge you to rethink your digital life.
267 pages, Hardcover
First published June 29, 2010
128 people are currently reading
2919 people want to read
About the author
William Powers
2 books5 followersLibrarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 325 reviews
September 29, 2014
This is not a bad book for the right person.
I'm just not that person.
Hamlet's BlackBerry presents William Powers's case that we all need to unplug and allow for the pauses in our lives that are necessary to truly appreciate our relationships, our private selves, and our imaginations. After spending what, for me, is an unnecessary amount of time presenting an argument that quickly becomes redundant, he moves into a more interesting (but fairly surface) look at how new technologies throughout history have altered the way society, and thus the individual, functions.
So, what was my issue with the book overall? Mainly that I'm already a lukewarm Luddite. I'm not naive enough to say that I can or will eschew all technology. There are too many advantages to simply swear off everything that is new and exciting in the realm of technology. However, I think I approach it with an awareness that many forms of technology actually make my life more stressful by making more work or filling my life with more noise. In short, give me technology that makes my life better and easier . . . and the better and easier it makes my life, the less I should be aware of it. So, Powers is preaching to the choir with me, something that is certainly not his fault and his book would be a better fit for someone who is only beginning to suspect that his life might be better with more "unplugged" moments and need some coaxing to wean himself off of his iPhone's teat.
Like so many non-fiction books, Hamlet's BlackBerry is often unnecessarily repetitious and the history sections, while interesting (especially the early chapters which focus on what a threat intellectuals perceived writing and books to be), offer vague support for his argument. This could have been an excellent magazine article or newspaper series, but it's not quite meant for book length form. Also, after reading Nicholas Carr's superior The Shallows, which broaches the issue of how technology can actually rewire our brains and cause us to become "shallow" thinkers, Power's thesis seems simplistic by contrast. However, if you haven't read The Shallows, then wading into the "less technology is more" argument with Powers may be ideal and Powers's message is probably better suited to people who are less concerned with neuroplasticity than with the need to "Simplify, simplify."
I'm just not that person.
Hamlet's BlackBerry presents William Powers's case that we all need to unplug and allow for the pauses in our lives that are necessary to truly appreciate our relationships, our private selves, and our imaginations. After spending what, for me, is an unnecessary amount of time presenting an argument that quickly becomes redundant, he moves into a more interesting (but fairly surface) look at how new technologies throughout history have altered the way society, and thus the individual, functions.
So, what was my issue with the book overall? Mainly that I'm already a lukewarm Luddite. I'm not naive enough to say that I can or will eschew all technology. There are too many advantages to simply swear off everything that is new and exciting in the realm of technology. However, I think I approach it with an awareness that many forms of technology actually make my life more stressful by making more work or filling my life with more noise. In short, give me technology that makes my life better and easier . . . and the better and easier it makes my life, the less I should be aware of it. So, Powers is preaching to the choir with me, something that is certainly not his fault and his book would be a better fit for someone who is only beginning to suspect that his life might be better with more "unplugged" moments and need some coaxing to wean himself off of his iPhone's teat.
Like so many non-fiction books, Hamlet's BlackBerry is often unnecessarily repetitious and the history sections, while interesting (especially the early chapters which focus on what a threat intellectuals perceived writing and books to be), offer vague support for his argument. This could have been an excellent magazine article or newspaper series, but it's not quite meant for book length form. Also, after reading Nicholas Carr's superior The Shallows, which broaches the issue of how technology can actually rewire our brains and cause us to become "shallow" thinkers, Power's thesis seems simplistic by contrast. However, if you haven't read The Shallows, then wading into the "less technology is more" argument with Powers may be ideal and Powers's message is probably better suited to people who are less concerned with neuroplasticity than with the need to "Simplify, simplify."
April 21, 2021
شرح مواجهه ی هفت نفر با آنچه نویسنده آنرا مشابه مواجهه ما با فناوری مدرن میداند:
افلاطون، سنکا، گوتنبرگ، شکسپیر، بنجامین فرانکلین، هنری دیوید تارو و سرانجام مارشال مکلوهان.
ایده کتاب به نظرم خیلی بدیع بود و به دلم نشست.
افلاطون، سنکا، گوتنبرگ، شکسپیر، بنجامین فرانکلین، هنری دیوید تارو و سرانجام مارشال مکلوهان.
ایده کتاب به نظرم خیلی بدیع بود و به دلم نشست.
April 10, 2012
Hamlet's BlackBerry disappointed me. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains is a more detailed, better written, and more convincing description of "information overload" and how current electronic media affect our minds and our lives.
Having spent the first part of the book describing the problem, Powers sets up the second part to be a tour through the ideas and philosophies of seven great thinkers, from Plato to Benjamin Franklin, each with advice to offer on establishing a balanced and fulfilling relationship with technology. This tour proves sketchy and vague. None of the writings cited is explored in depth, and the connections made to the present-day Internet are tenuous. The advice for good living that Powers extracts is correspondingly vague, when it's not missing entirely. I got very little out of this book.
Having spent the first part of the book describing the problem, Powers sets up the second part to be a tour through the ideas and philosophies of seven great thinkers, from Plato to Benjamin Franklin, each with advice to offer on establishing a balanced and fulfilling relationship with technology. This tour proves sketchy and vague. None of the writings cited is explored in depth, and the connections made to the present-day Internet are tenuous. The advice for good living that Powers extracts is correspondingly vague, when it's not missing entirely. I got very little out of this book.
August 17, 2010
A thoughtful, non-alarmist view of the negative effects of technology with some thoughts on how to mediate them. After having recently read, "The Shallows" which was maddening, this was refreshing. There was nothing terribly new in it but I was glad to see a take on the subject from someone who clearly uses and loves new technology. I was pleased to see him use McLuhan in a different way then Carr--he quotes Kevin McMahon, "the optimistic side of McLuhan's message is: You've built these things, and you can control them if you understand how they affect you." Powers thinks we can have our cake and eat it too and I agree. As I've said before--the medium isn't the message, it's only part of the message.
July 17, 2022
بلکبریِ هملت اثری در مورد هجوم ابزارهای ارتباطی جدید به خلوت و حریم زندگی ما ست، هجومی که تمرکز و عمق را ناممکن کرده. مؤلف در یکسوم ابتدایی با ذکر جزئیاتی از خاطراتش و برخی نقلقولها و تحقیقات، مسأله را طرح میکند. او در باقی کتاب با ارجاع به بزرگان تاریخ اندیشه و ادبیات و تکنولوژی، به دنبال استدلال برای رهایی از «اضافهبار اطلاعاتی» و درگیری مداوم با گوشی هوشمند و کامپیوتر و... است. افلاطون، سنکا، شکسپیر و یا هنری دیوید ثورو در این مورد به کمک او میآیند. کتاب خوب و مفیدی بود و میتوانست با ارجاعات بیشتر به آثار پژوهشی کمی و کیفی معاصر، غنای بیشتری هم بیابد
June 20, 2021
کتاب فوقالعادهای بود. زمینهی مشترکی با کار عمیق و مینیمالیسم دیجیتال داشت اما تفاوتی که داره این هستش که ملموستر و فلسفیتر به موضوع
استفاده از صفحه دیجیتال و شبکههای مجازی پرداخته و البته مثل کتابای نیوپورت هیچ شعارو مطلب زرد هم در کتاب ابدا نیست. بسیار توصیه میشه.
استفاده از صفحه دیجیتال و شبکههای مجازی پرداخته و البته مثل کتابای نیوپورت هیچ شعارو مطلب زرد هم در کتاب ابدا نیست. بسیار توصیه میشه.
February 28, 2011
If nothing else, this book affirmed me.
I don't blog, I don't do Facebook or Twitter. I don't own an iAnything (pod, pad, phone). My cell phone is just that-- a phone. No internet capabilities, save a computer at home.
And I'm perfectly fine with all of it, thank you very much.
Powers takes our society's massive obsession/addiction to "being connected" down to its core: the fact that we have to "accept our fundamental separateness from others. Happiness is about knowing how to enjoy one's own company."
For me, that sums up the whole book.
Being a loner, this was not difficult for me to grasp. Every year I take an "away" for several days to a quiet cabin. No television. No internet. No telephone. I'm even hesitant to bring any sort of music, for fear I'll miss out on the "real sounds" of life around me. The ducks and geese on the lake. The birds greeting the morning. The random skittering of animals through the brush. The wind.
Other than food, all I bring is a notebook (you know ... the kind you open and write in with an actual pen...)
Based on the number of holds placed on this book from my library, there are others questioning their constant connectedness. And I know there are even types of software you can buy and download which will block your internet-- so you might actually get something productive done.
(this, of anything in here, chastised me. I'm far too prone to scour the news or read up on my favorite football team-- or check goodreads-- when I know my time could be better spent doing my own writing.)
I felt like it could have been a good deal shorter (it seemed repetitive ... but then again, I already knew what he was talking about).
Two of my favorite quotes could have summed it up succinctly:
"No man will ever unfold the capacities of his own intellect who does not at least checker his life with solitude."
~De Quincey
"When from our better selves we have too long
Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious, how benign, is Solitude."
~Wordsworth
I don't blog, I don't do Facebook or Twitter. I don't own an iAnything (pod, pad, phone). My cell phone is just that-- a phone. No internet capabilities, save a computer at home.
And I'm perfectly fine with all of it, thank you very much.
Powers takes our society's massive obsession/addiction to "being connected" down to its core: the fact that we have to "accept our fundamental separateness from others. Happiness is about knowing how to enjoy one's own company."
For me, that sums up the whole book.
Being a loner, this was not difficult for me to grasp. Every year I take an "away" for several days to a quiet cabin. No television. No internet. No telephone. I'm even hesitant to bring any sort of music, for fear I'll miss out on the "real sounds" of life around me. The ducks and geese on the lake. The birds greeting the morning. The random skittering of animals through the brush. The wind.
Other than food, all I bring is a notebook (you know ... the kind you open and write in with an actual pen...)
Based on the number of holds placed on this book from my library, there are others questioning their constant connectedness. And I know there are even types of software you can buy and download which will block your internet-- so you might actually get something productive done.
(this, of anything in here, chastised me. I'm far too prone to scour the news or read up on my favorite football team-- or check goodreads-- when I know my time could be better spent doing my own writing.)
I felt like it could have been a good deal shorter (it seemed repetitive ... but then again, I already knew what he was talking about).
Two of my favorite quotes could have summed it up succinctly:
"No man will ever unfold the capacities of his own intellect who does not at least checker his life with solitude."
~De Quincey
"When from our better selves we have too long
Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious, how benign, is Solitude."
~Wordsworth
September 27, 2010
Blessed are thee to have friends who send emails, IMs, FB messages and text messages.
Yet with it comes the feeling that you have to constantly check them to keep connected.
If you ever feel even slightly overwhelmed by it all, this book will make you realize that this is not just a 21st Century problem. It goes back as far as Plato (with the written word), Gutenberg (with the printed word), Shakespeare (with handheld devices - read the book to understand what "tables" are), Thoreau (with rail and electricity connecting people), and other historical figures.
As he describes, "If you spend most of your time pressing keys and managing electronic traffic, that's what your life will be about. Maybe that makes you happy. If not, you have other options."
My job consists of staring at screens (W. Powers defines screen as computers, mobile phones, ereaders, etc.). Taking a break by reading this book put my life a bit more into perspective.
The nice thing is that W. Powers sees the good too. "The point isn't that the screen is bad. The screen is, in fact, very good. The point is the lack of proportion...We were living for the screen and through the screen, rather than for and through each other." And he offers some possible solutions.
Ironically, I'm sitting here in front of a screen writing all of this in a review. LOL! Stepping away now....
Yet with it comes the feeling that you have to constantly check them to keep connected.
If you ever feel even slightly overwhelmed by it all, this book will make you realize that this is not just a 21st Century problem. It goes back as far as Plato (with the written word), Gutenberg (with the printed word), Shakespeare (with handheld devices - read the book to understand what "tables" are), Thoreau (with rail and electricity connecting people), and other historical figures.
As he describes, "If you spend most of your time pressing keys and managing electronic traffic, that's what your life will be about. Maybe that makes you happy. If not, you have other options."
My job consists of staring at screens (W. Powers defines screen as computers, mobile phones, ereaders, etc.). Taking a break by reading this book put my life a bit more into perspective.
The nice thing is that W. Powers sees the good too. "The point isn't that the screen is bad. The screen is, in fact, very good. The point is the lack of proportion...We were living for the screen and through the screen, rather than for and through each other." And he offers some possible solutions.
Ironically, I'm sitting here in front of a screen writing all of this in a review. LOL! Stepping away now....
January 10, 2012
This book made some fantastic points, but in many cases I thought it was repetitive and slow. If it had been edited down to something a bit more concise, I would have enjoyed it more.
What I appreciated most about this book was the way Powers points to history and literature to illustrate the problems and solutions we currently face in the "digital age".
Ever thought about how distressing the arrival of the written word must have been to a previously oral culture? Even the ancients had to find ways to deal with the pressing demands of new technologies. Google may be making us stupid, but Socrates thought that writing was making the people every bit as stupid. Who, after all, needs to commit anything to memory anymore when we have the ability to just write it down and refer to it again later?
Powers does a terrific job of showing how each new development in communications technology (be it writing, the printing press, the telegraph, television, or the internet) has presented society with its own set of benefits and drawbacks, and that in every instance people have had the option of either using or being used by those technologies. Our situation is nothing new.
The question of how to build a good life—in a digital age, or in any other age, for that matter—is well worth asking, but I found Powers's solution somewhat unsatisfying. I wished he had given far more emphasis to the importance of physical presence as an antidote to the onslaught of digital presence in our high-tech lives. The idea of an internet sabbath, however, is terrific.
What I appreciated most about this book was the way Powers points to history and literature to illustrate the problems and solutions we currently face in the "digital age".
Ever thought about how distressing the arrival of the written word must have been to a previously oral culture? Even the ancients had to find ways to deal with the pressing demands of new technologies. Google may be making us stupid, but Socrates thought that writing was making the people every bit as stupid. Who, after all, needs to commit anything to memory anymore when we have the ability to just write it down and refer to it again later?
Powers does a terrific job of showing how each new development in communications technology (be it writing, the printing press, the telegraph, television, or the internet) has presented society with its own set of benefits and drawbacks, and that in every instance people have had the option of either using or being used by those technologies. Our situation is nothing new.
The question of how to build a good life—in a digital age, or in any other age, for that matter—is well worth asking, but I found Powers's solution somewhat unsatisfying. I wished he had given far more emphasis to the importance of physical presence as an antidote to the onslaught of digital presence in our high-tech lives. The idea of an internet sabbath, however, is terrific.
April 1, 2016
I think this book is for older people. I couldn't bring myself to share Powers' anxiety about how connectivity has changed his life, because I've had a laptop since I was 12 and all of my adult apartments have had wi-fi... the degree of connectivity has changed in my lifetime, and I definitely remember a time before the internet, but I'm firmly in the generation that has grown up with email and I think I've grown up knowing how to swim in the sea of the internet without freaking out.
I liked the first half, and found myself trying harder to leave my phone in my bag for my whole commute while I was reading it, and even on days when I wasn't. (And I like this plan - commute time as non-screen time) But he really lost me about halfway through when he started talking about Thoreau, who is decidedly not one of my kindred spirits.
An example that felt weird to me: Maybe this is because I didn't grow up watching a lot of TV and I haven't had a TV in my home for a long time, but I didn't see how watching a movie as a family counted as being fully engaged/present - I've always found movie-watching a profoundly unsocial activity.
I liked the first half, and found myself trying harder to leave my phone in my bag for my whole commute while I was reading it, and even on days when I wasn't. (And I like this plan - commute time as non-screen time) But he really lost me about halfway through when he started talking about Thoreau, who is decidedly not one of my kindred spirits.
An example that felt weird to me: Maybe this is because I didn't grow up watching a lot of TV and I haven't had a TV in my home for a long time, but I didn't see how watching a movie as a family counted as being fully engaged/present - I've always found movie-watching a profoundly unsocial activity.
December 24, 2023
پایان ۳دی۱۴۰۲
به نظر من شرایط و محیط خیلی تاثیر داره...
به نظر من شرایط و محیط خیلی تاثیر داره...
December 30, 2010
This book was a very thoughtful Xmas gift from someone I work with.
I've had an email account since 1984 and a cell phone since 1994, but I've never really thought that hard or systematically about what being connected electronically means to my life. I've always gone with the flow and upgraded to the latest gadgets, assuming that more features and more connectivity is unquestionably a good thing.
This book is important because it provides a set of mental constructs and historical reference points for thinking about the ever-accelerating level of connectivity we now have available to us. The historical/philosophical section is the most instructive part of the book, taking us through each of these thinkers:
1. Socrates (not a big fan of the new-fangled written scroll technology)
2. Seneca (the kind of guy who can study with headphones on, which I am definitely not)
3. Gutenberg (who made possible the mass production of inner experiences)
4. Shakespeare (who wrote Hamlet and made metaphors about these handy portable dry erase boards they had in the Middle Ages)
5. Franklin (who took Hamlet's notebook to the next level and who inspired the Franklin planner, the single most useful tool of my career)
6. Thoreau (I don't think he got it on as much as Franklin, but he did say that fire was the most agreeable 3rd party.)
7. McLuhan (who had the best gag in Annie Hall and foresaw all of this. Too bad he couldn't write for crap.)
Each of the seven philosophers (probably slightly dumbed down and taken slightly out of context) neatly illustrates a concept related to the exigencies of the screens that dominate our lives so. And by isolating and describing these concepts, Mr. Powers gives us a fingernail hold on our relationship with the Internet that we can use if we ever decide to pull it apart and examine it.
The three concepts/memes/whatevers that will stick with me long after finishing this book are (1) the similarities to the myth of Narcissus, where we become enamored of not only the reflection of our personas in various social networks, but also with the way our selves are extended through each new aspect of this evolving medium, (2) inner space vs. outer space, the weird way it now takes effort (for me it sometimes takes a lot of effort) to draw my attention to the here and now, as if my mind is swimming in the ocean while I wait on the shore, (3) a useful quote from Thoreau "We become the tools of our tools." (and a related one by McLuhan that I found looking up the Thoreau one: "We shape our tools, and our tools shape us.")
So now I'll have something to think about as I wait in line for the next version of the iPhone.
But don't get me wrong. It's very nice that I no longer need to trudge across campus (in the snow and uphill both ways) to check whether anyone replied to one of my reviews on rec.arts.books like I did back in the late 80s. Now I get a Goodreads email alert sent straight to my phone. It's awesome.
A few quibbles about the book: I don't think it needs to be as long as it is. There is a lot of repetition, especially stating the same points multiple times. Maybe he's assuming his audience is so Internet-addled that he needs to write as if for a teenager with ADD. It definitely helps with the retention, but it made me feel impatient. I'm a big boy. I can read grown up books. Also, I think some of the history might need to be fact checked. I'm not an expert, but there will little things like St. Augstine being in Italy (wasn't he in North Africa?) that struck me as minor errors, but not enough to make me get my phone out to fact check them. A third quibble is that some of the "solutions" aren't as ground breaking as Mr. Powers makes them seem. Maybe I'm just more savvy but doing things like going full screen and closing extra tabs is sort of a no duh suggestion. (The focused writing mode feature on Word is worth the price of Office alone.) One last thing: there is an introduction/prologue thingie written in the second person and I hate stuff written in the second person.
But I think this is a very important book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling with thoughts like these. Soon there will be a cultural a-ha moment about this relentless 24/7 connectivity, like in the Industrial Revolution when people started to think that maybe kids working in factories isn't such a good idea, and I think a lot of the conversation that society will have is contained in this book.
I've had an email account since 1984 and a cell phone since 1994, but I've never really thought that hard or systematically about what being connected electronically means to my life. I've always gone with the flow and upgraded to the latest gadgets, assuming that more features and more connectivity is unquestionably a good thing.
This book is important because it provides a set of mental constructs and historical reference points for thinking about the ever-accelerating level of connectivity we now have available to us. The historical/philosophical section is the most instructive part of the book, taking us through each of these thinkers:
1. Socrates (not a big fan of the new-fangled written scroll technology)
2. Seneca (the kind of guy who can study with headphones on, which I am definitely not)
3. Gutenberg (who made possible the mass production of inner experiences)
4. Shakespeare (who wrote Hamlet and made metaphors about these handy portable dry erase boards they had in the Middle Ages)
5. Franklin (who took Hamlet's notebook to the next level and who inspired the Franklin planner, the single most useful tool of my career)
6. Thoreau (I don't think he got it on as much as Franklin, but he did say that fire was the most agreeable 3rd party.)
7. McLuhan (who had the best gag in Annie Hall and foresaw all of this. Too bad he couldn't write for crap.)
Each of the seven philosophers (probably slightly dumbed down and taken slightly out of context) neatly illustrates a concept related to the exigencies of the screens that dominate our lives so. And by isolating and describing these concepts, Mr. Powers gives us a fingernail hold on our relationship with the Internet that we can use if we ever decide to pull it apart and examine it.
The three concepts/memes/whatevers that will stick with me long after finishing this book are (1) the similarities to the myth of Narcissus, where we become enamored of not only the reflection of our personas in various social networks, but also with the way our selves are extended through each new aspect of this evolving medium, (2) inner space vs. outer space, the weird way it now takes effort (for me it sometimes takes a lot of effort) to draw my attention to the here and now, as if my mind is swimming in the ocean while I wait on the shore, (3) a useful quote from Thoreau "We become the tools of our tools." (and a related one by McLuhan that I found looking up the Thoreau one: "We shape our tools, and our tools shape us.")
So now I'll have something to think about as I wait in line for the next version of the iPhone.
But don't get me wrong. It's very nice that I no longer need to trudge across campus (in the snow and uphill both ways) to check whether anyone replied to one of my reviews on rec.arts.books like I did back in the late 80s. Now I get a Goodreads email alert sent straight to my phone. It's awesome.
A few quibbles about the book: I don't think it needs to be as long as it is. There is a lot of repetition, especially stating the same points multiple times. Maybe he's assuming his audience is so Internet-addled that he needs to write as if for a teenager with ADD. It definitely helps with the retention, but it made me feel impatient. I'm a big boy. I can read grown up books. Also, I think some of the history might need to be fact checked. I'm not an expert, but there will little things like St. Augstine being in Italy (wasn't he in North Africa?) that struck me as minor errors, but not enough to make me get my phone out to fact check them. A third quibble is that some of the "solutions" aren't as ground breaking as Mr. Powers makes them seem. Maybe I'm just more savvy but doing things like going full screen and closing extra tabs is sort of a no duh suggestion. (The focused writing mode feature on Word is worth the price of Office alone.) One last thing: there is an introduction/prologue thingie written in the second person and I hate stuff written in the second person.
But I think this is a very important book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling with thoughts like these. Soon there will be a cultural a-ha moment about this relentless 24/7 connectivity, like in the Industrial Revolution when people started to think that maybe kids working in factories isn't such a good idea, and I think a lot of the conversation that society will have is contained in this book.
Read
September 7, 2010As you read this review, how many other programs are open on your computer? Your email, perhaps, and possibly the Library’s catalog, and probably there’s a Google search box just a click away. Is your mobile phone (how smart is it?) nearby, maybe on your belt or in your pocket, with you alert to the next beep or vibration signaling an incoming message? And if any part of this is true, does it make you happy or does it cause a little distraction, maybe even a little stress?
Hamlet’s BlackBerry discusses the paradox of our plugged-in lives. Multiple gadgets promise to keep us more connected than ever, and yet the ever-present demands on our attention that are facilitated by these gadgets remove some of our ability to concentrate on any one task or appreciate conversations with more depth.
Author William Powers is no Luddite and appreciates the enhancements that computer and communication technologies have brought to our homes and workplaces. But he also laments the growing superficiality of much of what we do, hopping from email to the web to tweets. Yes, thanks to Facebook, you know what your best friend back in fourth grade had for breakfast today, but…why should we be spending our time and energy to learn that?
Powers provides a historical perspective of the revolutionary changes in how people communicate and the threats such changes brought to meaningful thought and relationships. Plato, Seneca, Gutenberg, Shakespeare, Ben Franklin, Thoreau and McLuhan all get a chapter, and each had a way to cope with the intrusions of their day.
Hamlet’s BlackBerry was a pocket-sized book with specially coated pages that could be erased with a sponge. It was used in Shakespeare’s time to scribble notes on as people went about their busy days. Powers offers strategies to use the tools of our age to make work more efficient and correspondence more immediate, but also to know when to put down those tools and turn them off, in order to slow down, concentrate, and deepen our experiences.
And yes, of course, you can download this title to your gadget…from ICPL’s ebook collection. --Heidi
From ICPL Staff Picks Blog
Hamlet’s BlackBerry discusses the paradox of our plugged-in lives. Multiple gadgets promise to keep us more connected than ever, and yet the ever-present demands on our attention that are facilitated by these gadgets remove some of our ability to concentrate on any one task or appreciate conversations with more depth.
Author William Powers is no Luddite and appreciates the enhancements that computer and communication technologies have brought to our homes and workplaces. But he also laments the growing superficiality of much of what we do, hopping from email to the web to tweets. Yes, thanks to Facebook, you know what your best friend back in fourth grade had for breakfast today, but…why should we be spending our time and energy to learn that?
Powers provides a historical perspective of the revolutionary changes in how people communicate and the threats such changes brought to meaningful thought and relationships. Plato, Seneca, Gutenberg, Shakespeare, Ben Franklin, Thoreau and McLuhan all get a chapter, and each had a way to cope with the intrusions of their day.
Hamlet’s BlackBerry was a pocket-sized book with specially coated pages that could be erased with a sponge. It was used in Shakespeare’s time to scribble notes on as people went about their busy days. Powers offers strategies to use the tools of our age to make work more efficient and correspondence more immediate, but also to know when to put down those tools and turn them off, in order to slow down, concentrate, and deepen our experiences.
And yes, of course, you can download this title to your gadget…from ICPL’s ebook collection. --Heidi
From ICPL Staff Picks Blog
February 27, 2025
William Powers is an American technology writer. In his 2010 book Hamlet's Blackberry, written at the dusk of the Blackberry Age and dawn of the iPhone Age (the book could've easily been titled Hamlet's iPhone which would've made it seem less dated in 2025 as I write this), Powers follows a familiar, often-cliched formula present in many time management/productivity books before and after that era: "let's look back at historical figures (read: dead white guys) and mine their ancient wisdom on surviving the chaos of their times for lessons on how it could apply to modern times."
So what wisdom does this book hold 15 years later, as we're now more digitally connected and screen-addicted than we were in 2010? I think for the most part, this book still holds up. Though mobile technology is much more advanced and pervasive now (I managed to make it until 2016 before getting my first smartphone), we all have some degree of agency and choice in how much and how often we engage with technology and what occupies our attention. A parallel I often draw about the attention economy is how little societal conceptions of it have changed since Neil Postman's now-40-year-old (published in 1985) seminal book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. The historical figures Powers draws on in Hamlet's Blackberry also led lives of rampant busy-ness in their times, but found ways of using technology of their day to their gain, similar to how wise people approach technology today. I found the anecdote about Shakespeare's tables which he references in Hamlet (prototypical dry erase boards) particularly interesting:
Overall, an enjoyable, brief read. The stories about Walden Pond and how it wasn't actually an isolated enclave from the city were also quite compelling. Powers' suggestions in the final chapters seem a bit cliched and forced -- many books on this topic make similar suggestions to the point where they've become trite (see also: Tiffany Shlain's 24/6: Giving Up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection), Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, Johann Hari's Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again, and many, many more). The point is, awareness of one's own behavior around technology and recognizing where it may be problematic is the first step, and then individualized solutions can follow, versus blanket rules for everyone.
My statistics:
Book 66 for 2025
Book 1992 cumulatively
So what wisdom does this book hold 15 years later, as we're now more digitally connected and screen-addicted than we were in 2010? I think for the most part, this book still holds up. Though mobile technology is much more advanced and pervasive now (I managed to make it until 2016 before getting my first smartphone), we all have some degree of agency and choice in how much and how often we engage with technology and what occupies our attention. A parallel I often draw about the attention economy is how little societal conceptions of it have changed since Neil Postman's now-40-year-old (published in 1985) seminal book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. The historical figures Powers draws on in Hamlet's Blackberry also led lives of rampant busy-ness in their times, but found ways of using technology of their day to their gain, similar to how wise people approach technology today. I found the anecdote about Shakespeare's tables which he references in Hamlet (prototypical dry erase boards) particularly interesting:
“My tables,” as well as in the earlier passage about wiping away the mental clutter. What are these tables, anyway? They were an innovative gadget that first appeared in Europe in the late fifteenth century. Also known as writing tables or table books, they were pocket-sized almanacs or calendars that came with blank pages made of specially coated paper or parchment. Those pages could be written on with a metal stylus and later erased with a sponge, so they were reusable.
Tables were a new, improved version of a technology—wax tablets—that had been around for centuries. Instead of wax, their surfaces were made of a plasterlike material that made them much more durable and useful. They became enormously popular in Shakespeare’s lifetime as a solution to the relentless busyness of life. A harried Londoner or Parisian would carry one everywhere, jotting down useful information and quick thoughts, perhaps checking off items on a to-do list.
We don’t know that Shakespeare owned a table himself, but since he took the trouble to insert one into Hamlet and they were very popular among people in his world, it’s not unreasonable to imagine he did. It would have been useful to a man who was not only constantly writing plays (and collecting words and phrases to use in them) but also acting (he played the ghost in Hamlet), running a business of which he was part owner (the Globe), and investing in real estate on the side, all while trying to stay in touch with distant friends and family—his wife and children remained in Stratford, never coming to live with him in London...
What does this have to do with Shakespeare? I likened Hamlet’s erasable table to the smart phones we carry around today because, like the latter, it was a new gadget that helped people better manage their busy lives. However, it was a new gadget built on two very old technologies. I’ve already mentioned one, the older wax-based device. The other, much older technology was handwriting. Remember, this was a time when handwritten communication was, in certain crucial ways, on the decline. After centuries of handwritten texts, Gutenberg had come up with a much more efficient technology. People had immediately recognized the value of his invention, and printing had taken off.
According to the sliding-door school of thought, then, by Shakespeare’s time handwriting should have been relegated to a much smaller role in society and everyday life. In fact, the opposite happened. Though hand-produced manuscripts did go into a long, slow decline, beyond the small world of professional scribes the arrival of print set off a tremendous popular expansion in handwriting. Even as the revolutionary new Gutenberg technology was taking hold—and in some ways because it was taking hold—the older one gained new life.
There were a couple of reasons for this. First, as printed matter become widely available, the very idea of engaging in written expression suddenly became thinkable to more people. Previously, putting one’s own ideas into words on a page had been the province of the rich and powerful. With printed texts flying around everywhere, this rarefied activity looked less exclusive and intimidating and more appealing. Regular people wanted and often needed to participate in this new conversation. Since most didn’t have access to a press, handwriting was the best way to join in. Many who couldn’t read or write were suddenly motivated to learn...
As a result, all sorts of important new technologies for writing by hand appeared after the printing press, including graphite pencils and fountain pens. Print simply made more people want to write. The second reason handwriting became so popular was that it turned out to be a very useful way to navigate the whirlwind of information loosed by print—to live in a crazy world without going crazy oneself.
Overall, an enjoyable, brief read. The stories about Walden Pond and how it wasn't actually an isolated enclave from the city were also quite compelling. Powers' suggestions in the final chapters seem a bit cliched and forced -- many books on this topic make similar suggestions to the point where they've become trite (see also: Tiffany Shlain's 24/6: Giving Up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection), Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, Johann Hari's Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again, and many, many more). The point is, awareness of one's own behavior around technology and recognizing where it may be problematic is the first step, and then individualized solutions can follow, versus blanket rules for everyone.
My statistics:
Book 66 for 2025
Book 1992 cumulatively
October 28, 2011
Do our electronic devices serve us or do we serve them? I've been asking this question for some years and have felt it was more the latter than the former. "Hamlet's BlackBerry" details how this question has been asked for over 2,000 years.
If there is any doubt that there is a problem, let's take this quote from the book regarding regaining focus on a task when one has been interrupted: "By some estimates, recovering focus can take ten to twenty times the length of the interruption. So a one-minute interruption could require fifteen minutes of recovery time." p.59
So every time I pull my attention away from writing a book to check e-mail or Facebook, it's not just the small distraction it appears.
The author provides several analogous moments in Western history. For example, there is Thoreau's lament in "Walden": "But lo! men have become the tools of their tools ..." making reference to the always on information highway of his time, the telegraph.
The end of the book offers suggestions on unplugging, on creating distance between ourselves and the digital world, giving ourselves space and time for inward reflection rather than being obsessed with outward communication.
And as for what Shakespeare used as a "BlackBerry", you'll have to read the book to find out.
If there is any doubt that there is a problem, let's take this quote from the book regarding regaining focus on a task when one has been interrupted: "By some estimates, recovering focus can take ten to twenty times the length of the interruption. So a one-minute interruption could require fifteen minutes of recovery time." p.59
So every time I pull my attention away from writing a book to check e-mail or Facebook, it's not just the small distraction it appears.
The author provides several analogous moments in Western history. For example, there is Thoreau's lament in "Walden": "But lo! men have become the tools of their tools ..." making reference to the always on information highway of his time, the telegraph.
The end of the book offers suggestions on unplugging, on creating distance between ourselves and the digital world, giving ourselves space and time for inward reflection rather than being obsessed with outward communication.
And as for what Shakespeare used as a "BlackBerry", you'll have to read the book to find out.
June 20, 2013
First off, I'll admit. This book fell plague to a weird thing that happens to non-fiction books that I read. I'll call it the start/stop scenario. Not the books fault, but it didn't grip me enough to rip through (and then bookclub books had to take it's place). So I'd start, get moving, and then stop.
This also happens when I find that a book has quite a bit to ponder. Meaning, I don't want to RIP through it, because that would defeat the purpose of learning and processing the information.
So I started this one last year, picked it up again near the end of winter, and finished it now. I will definitely say that I never felt lost when I picked it back up, because the topic is very current and is already something I often think about.
The author's analysis wasn't necessarily breakthrough, but the book did offer up a lot of good thinking points about the way we let technology run rampant through our lives. It made the valid points that our generation isn't the first, or the last, to be plagued with these issues. And it offered concrete ways in which we can take various elements of our lives back for ourselves and use technology to our advantage, instead of being slaves to it. I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking about these things.
3.5
This also happens when I find that a book has quite a bit to ponder. Meaning, I don't want to RIP through it, because that would defeat the purpose of learning and processing the information.
So I started this one last year, picked it up again near the end of winter, and finished it now. I will definitely say that I never felt lost when I picked it back up, because the topic is very current and is already something I often think about.
The author's analysis wasn't necessarily breakthrough, but the book did offer up a lot of good thinking points about the way we let technology run rampant through our lives. It made the valid points that our generation isn't the first, or the last, to be plagued with these issues. And it offered concrete ways in which we can take various elements of our lives back for ourselves and use technology to our advantage, instead of being slaves to it. I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking about these things.
3.5
January 10, 2011
Sadly I find myself in the crosshairs of Hamlet's BlackBerry, a book which dissects modern society's fascination with connectedness and the toll it takes on our productivity and personal lives. William Powers' thesis is familiar to all smartphone-toting Westerners though he points out that the desire to escape the busyness of daily life is not new. Powers cleverly weaves the struggles and ideas of philosophers from Socrates to modern-day McLuhan in dealing with technological innovations that change communication. These include the written word, printing press, and devices we rely on today. An addict himself, Powers concludes with a few practical suggestions for maintaining a healthy balance between connectedness and nurturing the soul.
Though crisply written, the text suffers from repetitiveness. I found myself wanting a more concise version of the intuitive concept. Lo and behold, it appears toward the end between pages 221-230. Further, some of Powers' conclusions are derived from stretched logic or gossamer ties to his anecdotes.
A worthwhile read for anyone hoping to think systematically about their "screen" use.
Though crisply written, the text suffers from repetitiveness. I found myself wanting a more concise version of the intuitive concept. Lo and behold, it appears toward the end between pages 221-230. Further, some of Powers' conclusions are derived from stretched logic or gossamer ties to his anecdotes.
A worthwhile read for anyone hoping to think systematically about their "screen" use.
September 17, 2011
The premise of William Powers’ book, Hamlet’s Blackberry is sound – each major shift in information technology (i.e. scroll to codex, radio to television, etc.) both roils the status quo, engenders a new way of looking at the world, perhaps even a new way of thinking, and perhaps requires new strategies to deal with the resulting information – but his writing is too loose and anecdotal, and several of his connections are specious at best. Examining Plato, Cicero, Hamlet (?), Thoreau, McLuhan and others, in order to ascertain how to deal with this latest shift (internet, iPads, wireless, smartphones, etc.), the author arrives at the conclusion that connectedness isn’t bad, but disconnection every once and a while is probably a good idea. Pretty facile. While his chapters on Thoreau and McLuhan are interesting, the rest of the book does not really present a salient, research-based, in-depth argument about what new media are doing, if anything, to our cognition, social lives and thinking. Despite some interesting moments, Powers' attempts to be a Zen Neil Postman end up falling way short of the mark.
July 5, 2010
Not your run of the mill book, that's for sure. It concerns itself with the curses of the digital age and how to deal with it. The chapters in the middle were particularly interesting to me, which explain parallels from history to today's digital (esp. internet) busyness; for example, it describes Henry David Thoreau's experiments in finding a quiet zone at Walden, just over a mile from busy Concord, at the dawn of the telegraph age. (I can remember reading a Wodehouse book sometime ago in which telegraphs were sent back and forth, thinking myself at the time, "Gee, this sure is a lot like the email of today.")
Anyway, I found the writing not necessarily pretty, but skillful, and at times had to elevate my baseline concentration. I thought the subject matter inherently interesting, and the middle chapters on historic parallels were really a very pleasant surprise (Gutenberg, Thoreau, Socrates, Marshall McLuhan, and others are discussed.)
Obviously, this book won't fly off the shelves like Twilight vampire books, but if the topic tempts you, give it a try.
Anyway, I found the writing not necessarily pretty, but skillful, and at times had to elevate my baseline concentration. I thought the subject matter inherently interesting, and the middle chapters on historic parallels were really a very pleasant surprise (Gutenberg, Thoreau, Socrates, Marshall McLuhan, and others are discussed.)
Obviously, this book won't fly off the shelves like Twilight vampire books, but if the topic tempts you, give it a try.
September 2, 2024
خودآموز زبان انگلیسی برای اسب های مرده!
محتوای کتاب یه همچین چیزی هست. کسانی که توی اینترنت غرق شدن، یه همچین کتابی دست نمی گیرن بخونن!
و اگر هم بگیرن، زود می بندن!
کتاب سال 2010 نوشته شده درباره ی اینترنت ! نویسنده همش داره از وضعیت غرق شدن مردم در تکنولوژی ناله می کنه و در جمله ی بعدی می گه خیلی هم بد نیستا!
خیلی سعی کردم کتاب و تا اخر بخونم، همش منتظر بودم یک چیز متفاوت ازش بخونم ولی مطالب به صورت نوسانی خوب و بد می شد. شاید اگر کتاب و سال 2010 می خوندم برام جذاب تر بود ولی ما شبکه های اجتماعی جذابی مثل توییتر و اینستاگرام داریم و نویسنده درگیر چک کردن ایمیل هست و با این شرایط می خاد ما رو موعظه هم بکنه !
تا 100 صفحه ی اول می شد منتظر بود صحبت جالبی از کتاب دربیاد ولی هر چه بیشتر جلو رفتم امیدوم کمتر شد.
محتوای کتاب یه همچین چیزی هست. کسانی که توی اینترنت غرق شدن، یه همچین کتابی دست نمی گیرن بخونن!
و اگر هم بگیرن، زود می بندن!
کتاب سال 2010 نوشته شده درباره ی اینترنت ! نویسنده همش داره از وضعیت غرق شدن مردم در تکنولوژی ناله می کنه و در جمله ی بعدی می گه خیلی هم بد نیستا!
خیلی سعی کردم کتاب و تا اخر بخونم، همش منتظر بودم یک چیز متفاوت ازش بخونم ولی مطالب به صورت نوسانی خوب و بد می شد. شاید اگر کتاب و سال 2010 می خوندم برام جذاب تر بود ولی ما شبکه های اجتماعی جذابی مثل توییتر و اینستاگرام داریم و نویسنده درگیر چک کردن ایمیل هست و با این شرایط می خاد ما رو موعظه هم بکنه !
تا 100 صفحه ی اول می شد منتظر بود صحبت جالبی از کتاب دربیاد ولی هر چه بیشتر جلو رفتم امیدوم کمتر شد.
October 16, 2020
کتابی عالی و کاربردی برای همه ، دوستان در نظرات اشاره کرده اند که این کتاب تقریبن کپی ضعیف تری از کتاب نیکلاس کار : اینترنت با مغز ما چه کار می کند ؟ است ، ولی متاسفانه من آن کتاب را نخوانده ام و نسخه ی فیزیکی اش را هم ندارم و مجبورم با یک دستگاه دیجیتال بخوانمش ، کاری اصلن دوست ندارم انجامش دهم ، به خصوص بعد از خواندن بلک بری هملت
September 6, 2024
کتاب تا وسطاش نسبتا خوب بود اما دیگه تکراری شده بود . شاید هم من فلسفه اش رو درک نکردم . اما برای حدود ده پونزده سال پیش هست و مطالب برای ما دیگه گذشته .
بحث جامعه و تنهایی و مثال های اولیه اش رو دوست داشتم . اما از یه جای به بعد دیگه کششی نداشت
بحث جامعه و تنهایی و مثال های اولیه اش رو دوست داشتم . اما از یه جای به بعد دیگه کششی نداشت
August 13, 2018
Some good and practical advice in this book. I read it three or four years ago, and it's endlessly relevant.
November 23, 2014
There are more things in heaven and earth, Powers argues, than are dreamt of in our digital philosophy. I agree completely, although, as others have noted, the author doth protest too much, methinks, for those of us who already suspect that our devices hath power to assume a pleasing shape. We needed more matter with less art. Yet, thanks to its catchy title and the eponymous chapter that explains it, there’s a special appeal in this critique of connectedness. Meet it is I set it down, with additional apologies to Shakespeare purists.
Powers asks what a man is if his chief good and market of his time be but to tweet and friend. Connected, no more:
That one may tweet, and tweet, and feel the fear of missing out seems to be the particular malaise of our times. (Seems, madam? Nay, it is!) Having articulated this problem, Hamlet’s BlackBerry ends with a solution reminiscent of Susan Maushart’s The Winter Of Our Disconnect: How One Family Pulled The Plug On Their Technology And Lived To Tell. Nothing new there, but the message is clear: the digital age should not take from us any thing that we don’t willingly part withal – especially how we live our lives.
Powers asks what a man is if his chief good and market of his time be but to tweet and friend. Connected, no more:
“When we were still emerging from the analog age and the technology was slower, days and weeks would go by when we didn’t hear from a friend or family member. Today we’re in touch by the hour, the minute.… The goal is no longer to be ‘in touch’ but to erase the possibility of ever being out of touch.”And it follows, as the night the day, we can’t give every man our ear, or only few our voice; nor take each man’s censure, but reserve our judgment:
“In less connected times, human beings were forced to shape their own interior sense of identity and worth – to become self-sufficient. By virtue of its interactivity, the digital medium is a source of constant confirmation that, yes, you do indeed exist and matter.… Who’s read my latest post? Are there any comments on my comments? Who’s paying attention to me now?”So what do we read, my lords? Words, words, words. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand. Therefore we are dishonest all:
“When everyone is endlessly available, all forms of human contact begin to seem less special and significant. Little by little, companionship itself becomes a commodity, cheap, easily taken for granted. A person is just another person, and there are so many of those, blah, blah, blah.”Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing we make of social interaction. We would play upon our device; we would seem to know its buttons; we would pluck out the heart of its mystery; we would sound it from its keypad tones to the most annoying of its notification alerts. ’Sblood, do we think iOS is easier to be used than Android? Use what instrument we will, though we could switch it off, we cannot help but play upon it:
“Our busyness doesn’t just take place in our minds, it’s our minds that orchestrate it and allow it to happen. When anyone mentions the mind today, most of us immediately think of the brain, though they’re not the same thing.… Today there’s no more impressive lead-in than ‘According to a new neuroscience study … ’ Perhaps, the hopeful thinking goes, the answer will be found there.”Ay, there’s the rub: though that be method, yet there is madness in seeking the answer in neuroscience. As a philosophical writer, Powers (unlike Nicholas Carr in The Shallows) is exploring how our noble minds are o’erthrown. This is the faculty that sees yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel and thinks it’s backed like a weasel, or very like a whale – not the organ that adapts plasticly to Plato’s scrolls or Gutenberg’s printing press or Apple’s swipe screen. For in this age of screens what thoughts may come, when we have switched off all our devices, should give us pause:
“In the sixteenth century, when information was physically piling up everywhere, it was the ability to erase some of it that afforded a sense of empowerment and control. In contrast, the digital information that weighs on us today exists in a nonphysical medium, and this is part of the problem. We know it’s out there, and we have words to represent and quantify it. An exabyte, for instance, is a million million megabytes. But that doesn’t mean much to me. Where is all that data, exactly? It’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time. We’re physical creatures who perceive and know the world through our bodies, yet we now spend much of our time in a universe of disembodied information.”Thus connectedness does make neurotics of us all; and thus the native hue of social interaction is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of LED backlighting.
That one may tweet, and tweet, and feel the fear of missing out seems to be the particular malaise of our times. (Seems, madam? Nay, it is!) Having articulated this problem, Hamlet’s BlackBerry ends with a solution reminiscent of Susan Maushart’s The Winter Of Our Disconnect: How One Family Pulled The Plug On Their Technology And Lived To Tell. Nothing new there, but the message is clear: the digital age should not take from us any thing that we don’t willingly part withal – especially how we live our lives.
August 17, 2011
I've been feeling overwhelmed lately by the demands of the various online communities and social networking sites to which I belong. Well, not just lately; a few months ago, I actually did a major purge of Facebook, 'unfriending' everyone to whom I didn't feel I had a real connection. It was over 200 people, which boggles the mind. Two hundred people I had 'friended' just to, what? I wasn't sure. Which is why I cut them loose. I haven't missed a single one.
But still, my digital, online life has been taking up far too much of my time, so when I saw this book offered for review by Harper Perennial, I jumped at it. And I'm really glad I did. I was recommending this book before I'd even finished it.
The first part of the book is about how connected we are, and how this is causing stress and other problems in our lives. Powers uses personal anecdotes as well as general stories to illustrate his points, using himself and his family as examples to bring home the impact of all the screens in our lives, as he puts it. Being connected is a good thing, he says, but it's taking over our existence.
In part II, he explores seven thinkers and philosophers from history, from Plato to McLuhan, and how they dealt with changing technologies in their times. Being overwhelmed by the crowd, as new technologies bring them into our homes and lives, is nothing new. What's interesting is how they managed to integrate these technologies into their daily lives without letting them take over, and how that pertains to us now. Then, as now, there was often a backlash against new tech. An example Powers uses is the recent resurgence of the popularity of Moleskine notebooks (of which I am also a fan: I love carrying around a little notebook to write snippets in as I think of them). Something that would have been high tech a few hundred years ago is now retro cool, and that's a good thing.
The last part of the book is about putting into practice ways to break away from the addiction to screens, both computers and smartphones. As an experiment, he and his family declare weekends to be Digital Sabbaths (something the Rowdy Kittens website calls Digital Sabbaticals), when the modem is unplugged and mobile phones turned off. It takes them a while to get used to it, but eventually it's something they all look forward to, and it makes them closer as a family.
This is something I'd like to put into practice myself: make at least one day per week a connection-free day, and not go online at all. I spend far too much time checking Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal, and now Google+ multiple times per day. And I don't even have a smartphone! It would be ten times worse, I'm sure, if I did. And yet, I still want one. I find it annoying when people I'm with keep checking their phones, yet would I be like that if I had one? Probably.
I do make a conscious effort to step away from the computer when I'm at home, going out for walks or into the living room to read or write (on paper, with a pen, even!). But as soon as I get home, or finish a chapter, I'm back at the screen, checking email or what have you. It truly is an addiction. I feel like this book has given me the tools to break that addiction, or at least manage it.
What I liked best about this book is its emphasis on creating and maintaining human interactions, with depth and connection you can't get in the small, quick world of the screens. You can make deep and lasting connections with people online, but don't forget the flesh-and-blood humans in your life as well. And don't forget to stop and smell the roses.
But still, my digital, online life has been taking up far too much of my time, so when I saw this book offered for review by Harper Perennial, I jumped at it. And I'm really glad I did. I was recommending this book before I'd even finished it.
The first part of the book is about how connected we are, and how this is causing stress and other problems in our lives. Powers uses personal anecdotes as well as general stories to illustrate his points, using himself and his family as examples to bring home the impact of all the screens in our lives, as he puts it. Being connected is a good thing, he says, but it's taking over our existence.
In part II, he explores seven thinkers and philosophers from history, from Plato to McLuhan, and how they dealt with changing technologies in their times. Being overwhelmed by the crowd, as new technologies bring them into our homes and lives, is nothing new. What's interesting is how they managed to integrate these technologies into their daily lives without letting them take over, and how that pertains to us now. Then, as now, there was often a backlash against new tech. An example Powers uses is the recent resurgence of the popularity of Moleskine notebooks (of which I am also a fan: I love carrying around a little notebook to write snippets in as I think of them). Something that would have been high tech a few hundred years ago is now retro cool, and that's a good thing.
The last part of the book is about putting into practice ways to break away from the addiction to screens, both computers and smartphones. As an experiment, he and his family declare weekends to be Digital Sabbaths (something the Rowdy Kittens website calls Digital Sabbaticals), when the modem is unplugged and mobile phones turned off. It takes them a while to get used to it, but eventually it's something they all look forward to, and it makes them closer as a family.
This is something I'd like to put into practice myself: make at least one day per week a connection-free day, and not go online at all. I spend far too much time checking Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal, and now Google+ multiple times per day. And I don't even have a smartphone! It would be ten times worse, I'm sure, if I did. And yet, I still want one. I find it annoying when people I'm with keep checking their phones, yet would I be like that if I had one? Probably.
I do make a conscious effort to step away from the computer when I'm at home, going out for walks or into the living room to read or write (on paper, with a pen, even!). But as soon as I get home, or finish a chapter, I'm back at the screen, checking email or what have you. It truly is an addiction. I feel like this book has given me the tools to break that addiction, or at least manage it.
What I liked best about this book is its emphasis on creating and maintaining human interactions, with depth and connection you can't get in the small, quick world of the screens. You can make deep and lasting connections with people online, but don't forget the flesh-and-blood humans in your life as well. And don't forget to stop and smell the roses.
January 1, 2016
Powers attempts to explain the sensation that there's something wrong with the fact that there's so much communication technology in use nowadays appears. He believes that there is indeed a problem that needs to be addressed, and believes that it's possible to address it by paying attention to philosophers or other prominent thought leaders of the past.
This historicising approach has its benefits. For one, it conveys that the nature of the issues faced in contemporary society are not new: they've been experienced before, and they've been addressed before. Powers chose his philosophers - Plato, Seneca, Gutenberg, Shakespeare, Franklin, Thoreau, McLuhan - based on the attitudes they expressed about the communications technology and the society of their era, in an attempt to show how the solutions of the past could be applied to the problems of the present. Ultimately, though, I think the effort runs into trouble by vastly oversimplifying the problems and issues involved.
The problem for Powers is "screens" and how so many of us now choose to spend so much time connected to them instead of to "real" experience. He does suggest that this behaviour could stem from a contemporary ideology which claims, as he puts it, that more connectedness is always better. The nature of the problem is a lack of time devoted to "inner life". The entire issue of the possible advantages and disadvantages of communications technologies is reduced to the question of whether the technologies themselves provide the right balance of time spent alone versus time spent "in the crowd". Such an issue is important, but it can't be blamed entirely on the technology, and it surely isn't the only ethical issue to consider.
Powers also explicitly rejects technical solutions to this screen-induced problem of constant distraction. He claims instead that the solution must be philosophical: it requires thinking about the problem and coming up with changes to one's own lifestyle in order to have a healthier relationship with technology. The specific suggestions supplied in each chapter form the core of are book. The suggestions are quite comprehensible, and sound quite straightforward to implement. However, Powers at no point considers that such behaviours, if undertaken by someone who isn't a comfortably middle-class professional write, might have tremendous opportunity costs.
I'm reminded of a comment about society by Ulrich Beck, who suggests that an endemic problem of the contemporary era is the tendency to treat social problems as personal flaws. And so Powers' insistence that the problem is the flaw of so many people's fascination with screens overlooks that the problem might not have its source in personal desire, or even acceptance of an ideology of "connection", but in the requirements of society itself. Personalisation of the issue thereby neglects an entire area of the nature of modern "screens", where people may feel obligated to keep up to date with their emails even if they don't want to. This isn't theoretical, either
In Germany, for instance, there has been a recent push to ban employers from emailing employees outside of business hours. This is an extremely good move, entirely in keeping with what Powers would want, but there's simply no way that the employees could achieve this ban merely by changing their own behaviour. It was a social solution to a social problem, not a personal solution for a personal problem.
Three stars is about the rating I've been giving to books that make me go: "there's some pretty sound ideas in here, but there's just so much that's wrong as well". So that's what this book gets.
This historicising approach has its benefits. For one, it conveys that the nature of the issues faced in contemporary society are not new: they've been experienced before, and they've been addressed before. Powers chose his philosophers - Plato, Seneca, Gutenberg, Shakespeare, Franklin, Thoreau, McLuhan - based on the attitudes they expressed about the communications technology and the society of their era, in an attempt to show how the solutions of the past could be applied to the problems of the present. Ultimately, though, I think the effort runs into trouble by vastly oversimplifying the problems and issues involved.
The problem for Powers is "screens" and how so many of us now choose to spend so much time connected to them instead of to "real" experience. He does suggest that this behaviour could stem from a contemporary ideology which claims, as he puts it, that more connectedness is always better. The nature of the problem is a lack of time devoted to "inner life". The entire issue of the possible advantages and disadvantages of communications technologies is reduced to the question of whether the technologies themselves provide the right balance of time spent alone versus time spent "in the crowd". Such an issue is important, but it can't be blamed entirely on the technology, and it surely isn't the only ethical issue to consider.
Powers also explicitly rejects technical solutions to this screen-induced problem of constant distraction. He claims instead that the solution must be philosophical: it requires thinking about the problem and coming up with changes to one's own lifestyle in order to have a healthier relationship with technology. The specific suggestions supplied in each chapter form the core of are book. The suggestions are quite comprehensible, and sound quite straightforward to implement. However, Powers at no point considers that such behaviours, if undertaken by someone who isn't a comfortably middle-class professional write, might have tremendous opportunity costs.
I'm reminded of a comment about society by Ulrich Beck, who suggests that an endemic problem of the contemporary era is the tendency to treat social problems as personal flaws. And so Powers' insistence that the problem is the flaw of so many people's fascination with screens overlooks that the problem might not have its source in personal desire, or even acceptance of an ideology of "connection", but in the requirements of society itself. Personalisation of the issue thereby neglects an entire area of the nature of modern "screens", where people may feel obligated to keep up to date with their emails even if they don't want to. This isn't theoretical, either
In Germany, for instance, there has been a recent push to ban employers from emailing employees outside of business hours. This is an extremely good move, entirely in keeping with what Powers would want, but there's simply no way that the employees could achieve this ban merely by changing their own behaviour. It was a social solution to a social problem, not a personal solution for a personal problem.
Three stars is about the rating I've been giving to books that make me go: "there's some pretty sound ideas in here, but there's just so much that's wrong as well". So that's what this book gets.
August 17, 2011
This is one of those sociological books that my cerebral self really enjoyed. First of all, Powers addresses a problems I struggle with every day. How much technology is too much? My answer has mostly been that too much is when it takes too long to figure it out. Like spending 45 minutes putting parental controls and taking off the app store of the ipod so my credit card will stop taking a hit. Like when we got a new DVR and I can't figure out how to cancel recordings so I simply gave up watching TV.
Conversely, how much time have I invested into understanding html or ignored my children while I had a very important email to read or write or blog post to pound out (none of which I can remember, anymore)? More than I care to admit. In fact, Powers quotes a Google executive giving a commencement speech where he exhorts the new graduates to turn off the computer and play with a child.
What Powers contends is that we are missing "gaps" in our lives. The time between profound moments to process, make sense, and develop depth. We move from one activity to another, toggling as quickly as we can without taking the time to reflect and develop meaning from life. The author then uses experiences from his own life and provides philosophical examples from pivotal moments of information in the past like Plato telling a story about leaving the city behind to think or Guttenberg's moveable type machines and the way reading aloud to reading silently changed thinking processes, Shakespeare's Hamlet using a fourteenth century ipad, etc.
I found each example to be incredibly intriguing and presented new information or information presented in a way I'd not considered. This is not a book to read while surrounded by technology or other people to distract the reader. Although not difficult to understand and easy language, the ideas require the reader to have "gaps" to absorb it.
Ultimately, I still struggle with the question of technology. On the other hand, my best example is that of my dad. No matter what he was listening to on the radio, watching on the television, reading in a book or newspaper, when I spoke he turned off the radio, television or closed the book until we were finished talking. Nothing on t.v. or the radio was more important than I was.
I wish William Powers had included Tony LaPray as one of the pivotal men in information history.
Conversely, how much time have I invested into understanding html or ignored my children while I had a very important email to read or write or blog post to pound out (none of which I can remember, anymore)? More than I care to admit. In fact, Powers quotes a Google executive giving a commencement speech where he exhorts the new graduates to turn off the computer and play with a child.
What Powers contends is that we are missing "gaps" in our lives. The time between profound moments to process, make sense, and develop depth. We move from one activity to another, toggling as quickly as we can without taking the time to reflect and develop meaning from life. The author then uses experiences from his own life and provides philosophical examples from pivotal moments of information in the past like Plato telling a story about leaving the city behind to think or Guttenberg's moveable type machines and the way reading aloud to reading silently changed thinking processes, Shakespeare's Hamlet using a fourteenth century ipad, etc.
I found each example to be incredibly intriguing and presented new information or information presented in a way I'd not considered. This is not a book to read while surrounded by technology or other people to distract the reader. Although not difficult to understand and easy language, the ideas require the reader to have "gaps" to absorb it.
Ultimately, I still struggle with the question of technology. On the other hand, my best example is that of my dad. No matter what he was listening to on the radio, watching on the television, reading in a book or newspaper, when I spoke he turned off the radio, television or closed the book until we were finished talking. Nothing on t.v. or the radio was more important than I was.
I wish William Powers had included Tony LaPray as one of the pivotal men in information history.
September 17, 2010
This is an extremely important and valuable book, if for no other reason than to confirm to me that I am *not* crazy, that our headlong rush into more and more digital connectedness is not necessarily a good thing--it's confirmation of my feelings these last few years. And like the author, I'm not an anti-techie. I LIKE having a cell phone and email. When used in the proper proportions, I think the digital world does enhance my life.
But there is a point past which it makes me crazy instead. And this book is important validation for WHY and then, for WHAT to do about it. I never knew, sometimes, why I was feeling so uncomfortable. I would make a brief foray into some new digital adventure because "everyone is doing it" and then, when I felt only stressed and not happy, I'd pull back and leave, and take my lumps from people around me who could not understand my decision at all. I actually got hateful comments when I "resigned" from the blogosphere after a year-long experiment. And when I briefly joined Facebook, and then quit, I had people genuinely puzzled. "But how can ANYONE not like Facebook?????" Now I know--I was just needing more "alpha" and less "omega" to keep the balance in my life.
In addition to persuasively identifying the problem of the downfalls of too much connectivity in our lives, and how stressed it can leave us, Powers then takes us on a thoughtful tour through history to learn from the adaptations of other men in other times who've had to adjust to a new technology. My kids did not like this part of the book best, but I really enjoyed it--I think there was a lot of value to learn. And I really appreciated that Powers gave us examples of things to do to find spaces in our lives for non-connectedness, rather than give us "prescriptions" I think he is absolutely right that we have to decide on our own boundaries ourselves, and not have it imposed on us from outside.
Very vital book in this day and age, thoughtful and persuasive.
But there is a point past which it makes me crazy instead. And this book is important validation for WHY and then, for WHAT to do about it. I never knew, sometimes, why I was feeling so uncomfortable. I would make a brief foray into some new digital adventure because "everyone is doing it" and then, when I felt only stressed and not happy, I'd pull back and leave, and take my lumps from people around me who could not understand my decision at all. I actually got hateful comments when I "resigned" from the blogosphere after a year-long experiment. And when I briefly joined Facebook, and then quit, I had people genuinely puzzled. "But how can ANYONE not like Facebook?????" Now I know--I was just needing more "alpha" and less "omega" to keep the balance in my life.
In addition to persuasively identifying the problem of the downfalls of too much connectivity in our lives, and how stressed it can leave us, Powers then takes us on a thoughtful tour through history to learn from the adaptations of other men in other times who've had to adjust to a new technology. My kids did not like this part of the book best, but I really enjoyed it--I think there was a lot of value to learn. And I really appreciated that Powers gave us examples of things to do to find spaces in our lives for non-connectedness, rather than give us "prescriptions" I think he is absolutely right that we have to decide on our own boundaries ourselves, and not have it imposed on us from outside.
Very vital book in this day and age, thoughtful and persuasive.
August 24, 2010
Great read!
"We've effectively been living by a philosophy, albeit an unconscious one. It holds that (1) connecting via screens is good, and (2) the more you connect, the better. I call it Digital Maximalism, because the goal is maximum screen time. Few of us have decided this is a wise approach to life, but let's face it, this is how we have been living."
"Digital busyness is the enemy of depth."
"Part of what drives us back to the screen may be evolutionary programming. The human brain is wired to detect and respond to new stimuli. When we become aware of some novel event or object in our surroundings, the brain's "reward system" is activated..."
"It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more."
Definitely recommended! A snapshot of the times we are living in!
"We've effectively been living by a philosophy, albeit an unconscious one. It holds that (1) connecting via screens is good, and (2) the more you connect, the better. I call it Digital Maximalism, because the goal is maximum screen time. Few of us have decided this is a wise approach to life, but let's face it, this is how we have been living."
"Digital busyness is the enemy of depth."
"Part of what drives us back to the screen may be evolutionary programming. The human brain is wired to detect and respond to new stimuli. When we become aware of some novel event or object in our surroundings, the brain's "reward system" is activated..."
"It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more."
Definitely recommended! A snapshot of the times we are living in!
February 1, 2011
This book was so easy to read and thoughtful about our technological revolution. Not only does he explain what it's like to live within the "crowd" of social media, constant email and internet, but Powers also goes through the history of philosophers of different centuries who struggled with the latest technology in their culture. It was really comforting to know that in Shakespeare's day, people had something they called "tables" that they carried around the way we now carry Blackberry-s. Powers also gives a practical solution to dealing with the overdose of technology in our culture, and he certainly doesn't vilify it. Making something forbidden only makes people want it more, as he shows. This was a book that I will continue to think about for a long time to come, and I find myself implementing his ideas daily.
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