Technology and the ability to stay connected 24/7 can be a wonderful thing; it can also be very debilitating as we find ourselves always on, always connected, unable to escape and finding ourselves more and more dependent on electronic devices. Rather than making us more productive and connected, is it possible these devices offer us more ways to waste time and make us more isolated than ever? William Powers cites examples from great thinkers such as Plato, Seneca, Shakespeare, Ben Franklin and Thoreau, making a case that connectedness can be a very productive, wonderful thing when it is tempered with disconnectedness and a retreat back into the pre-Internet ages. Powers includes Franklin’s thirteen desirable virtues, which Franklin used in combination with a copy of Hamlet’s erasable tables. Powers shows that living purposefully can be achieved by balancing modern technology with the ability to turn off, step back and reconnect with ourselves and those around us. A very approachable, readable disourse, we will all find something our ourselves in Hamlet’s Blackberry.
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