Philosophy

A Moment of Unplugged Zen Poolside

by Mark Glaser

The sun is beating down on me through hazy clouds and cool breeze. I'm sitting in a metal pool chair, perched at the edge of the water, with my feet dangling in. There's a fake palm tree nearby, giving me some shade and a spray of water to cool me.

The scene is far from quiet, as this is a sprawling kids swim park, with children of all ages swarming about, climbing stairs and coming down slides. Water is spurting all around, from water guns attached to turrets, from PVC pipes that open with the tug of ropes, from a very large bucket that sits atop the slide and pours out over everyone from time to time. As I watch my son and his cousins go up the stairs and down the slide, up the stairs and down the slide, up the stairs and down the slide, I slowly reach a state of quiet solitude.

• July 7, 2008
• 5 comments

Digging Deeper

'Technology Sabbath' Offers One Day to Unplug

by Mark Glaser

Lately, I've been experimenting with taking one day each week away from work completely. You might think this would be an easy task as there's a "weekend" each week that allegedly offers up two full days of rest. And yet, as I work at home, the shiny big screen of the iMac beckons at all hours, and I am often in front of its white glow the first thing every morning and the last thing at night.

• June 5, 2008
• 8 comments

Jennifer Woodard Maderazo

'Blog Till You Drop' Phenomenon Overblown; Disconnecting Is Key

by Jennifer Woodard Maderazo

The New York Times recently published a story , "In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop," that created a lot of buzz. The story told about bloggers who were literally working themselves to death. As if it were a quickly advancing trend, the Times' Matt Richtel declared, "a growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs,...

• April 11, 2008
• 4 comments

Jennifer Woodard Maderazo

5 Reasons I Won't Give Up Books

by Jennifer Woodard Maderazo

Last month at the highly anticipated MacWorld conference here in San Francisco, Apple honcho Steve Jobs said some words that left many agape. Those words weren't "Macbook Air" but "people don't read anymore." He was predicting a doomed future for Amazon's new Kindle e-reader. Shocked, I've been going over this for weeks now, trying to cut through the punditry...

• February 8, 2008
• 16 comments

Jennifer Woodard Maderazo

How Google, Wikipedia Have Changed Our Lives -- For Better and Worse

by Jennifer Woodard Maderazo

A lecturer in the U.K. made headlines this month when she banned her students from using Wikipedia and Google for research assignments in her classes. The professor, Dr. Tara Brabazon, said that students "don't come to university to learn how to Google." I'm sure they don't, but I can imagine the fear that the ban struck in the hearts...

• January 25, 2008
• 12 comments

Jennifer Woodard Maderazo

6 Reasons I'm Not Hooked on Podcasts

by Jennifer Woodard Maderazo

A year ago, Mark wrote about the factors that were limiting the growth of podcast adoption. Some of the problems include the difficulty in finding quality content, a lack of understanding of the medium, and a general impatience in getting podcasts to work. I can relate. Try as I might, I haven't been able to make podcasts a part of...

• December 7, 2007
• 15 comments

Media Usage

How Cell Phones Are Killing Face-to-Face Interactions

by Mark Glaser

Whether you are dating someone, interviewing someone, or just meeting someone for the first time, there is a special quality about face-to-face interactions. You can catch the subtle tone in their voice, see their expression as it changes from sad to outraged, and you can look them in the eye to see if you trust them. So it's unfortunate...

• October 22, 2007
• 14 comments

Digging Deeper

Pew Internet Finds Good (and Bad) of Web's Social Impact

by Mark Glaser

For those of us who spend much of our lives online, we get hunches about the way things are. It might seem like everyone is writing a blog, listening to a podcast, or watching home-made video clips. Or we might assume that everyone now uses the Internet to help research big purchases or make big life decisions.

• February 7, 2007
• No comments

Your Take Roundup

Call It a Syndrome or Disorder -- We Just Don't Pay Attention

by Mark Glaser

I know you're in a hurry, you've got somewhere to go, someone to call, someone to email, someone to IM, something to say on your own blog. So I'll keep it short and sweet and to the point: Thanks to the new communication technologies and media delivery, our attention spans are somewhere between a gnat's and a goldfish's.

• February 5, 2007
• 3 comments

MarketingShift

Bomb Scare Tactics in War for Our Attention

by Mark Glaser

For every tactic the world of marketing and advertising dreams up, we have a counter-technology that will block their attempts to reach us. We zap TV ads with the aid of digital video recorders such as TiVo. We subscribe to satellite radio or listen to podcasts to skip radio commercials. Our web browsers have pop-up ad blockers to put those annoying, blinking ads to rest.

• February 2, 2007
• 17 comments

Your Take

Does anyone pay attention anymore?

by Mark Glaser

The TV is on. You're surfing the web. Chatting with someone on instant messaging. Your cell phone rings. The stereo is playing in the background. Our world is increasingly cluttered with media, and the Internet and technology have played key roles in making us more scattered than ever. Some people call it multi-tasking; others call it a severe case of attention deficit disorder (ADD). There's an entire school of thought devoted to the Attention Economy, the idea that marketers will have to nail and claw to get our attention. So I ask you: Does anyone pay attention anymore, or is our world becoming dangerously ADD? Do you feel like we are naturally evolving and this is just part of technology becoming more enmeshed in our lives, or that we're heading for an emotional meltdown? Share your thoughts in the comments below and I'll share the best ones in the next Your Take Roundup.

• February 1, 2007
• 14 comments

Philosophy

Balancing Work and Play on Summer Vacation

by Mark Glaser

I promised myself (and you, dear readers) that I would take a real summer vacation this year, and try my best to unplug from technology, from work, from my usual mode of media overload.

• August 4, 2006
• 4 comments