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The End of Absence
The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We've Lost in a World of Constant Connection | Michael Harris
7 posts | 6 read | 6 to read
Soon enough, nobody will remember life before the Internet. What does this unavoidable fact mean? Those of us who have lived both with and without the crowded connectivity of online life have a rare opportunity. We can still recognize the difference between Before and After. We catch ourselves idly reaching for our phones at the bus stop. Or we notice how, midconversation, a fumbling friend dives into the perfect recall of Google. In this eloquent and thought-provoking book, Michael Harris argues that amid all the changes we're experiencing, the most interesting is the end of absence-the loss of lack. The daydreaming silences in our lives are filled; the burning solitudes are extinguished. There's no true "free time" when you carry a smartphone. Today's rarest commodity is the chance to be alone with your thoughts. Michael Harris is an award-winning journalist and a contributing editor at Western Living and Vancouvermagazines. He lives in Toronto, Canada.
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Gina
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Mehso-so

I had high hopes for this book but I felt it was more of the author's narrative with bits of facts thrown in. It felt weak and wasn't as cohesive as I think it could have been. Worth a check out from the library as it did have some interesting points but don't bother to buy it.

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Gina
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So creepy and yet so accurate...

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Gina
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Now that's something to ponder...

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Gina
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Well that is an unusual way to describe someone...

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Gina
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Because having a reading buddy rocks!

"We all do no end of feeling and we mistake it for thinking. And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is Public Opinion." ~ Mark Twain

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Gina
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Reading about "digital burnout" in the perfect setting.

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AliBG
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Reading this one for dinner. "This will kill that" may be the most succinct insight I've heard or understood in a long time. The author presses us to consider what "that" our "this" (the internet) will kill, is killing, or has killed.

Put here with a table cloth my mother sewed, as she sewed everything in our home for so many years...the question is irrevocably pertinent.

AliBG I'm also offering this as #farflung for #maybookflowers - spans the world and many disciplines in an extended meditation. 8y
AliBG FWIW: "This will kill that" originally spoken by the Archdeacon in Victor Hugo's NOTRE DAME DE PARIS, about the printed book and the cathedral. 8y
15 likes2 comments