Hamlet's BlackBerry; A Practical Philosophy For Building A Good Life In The Digital Age

New York: Harper [An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers], 2010. Later printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. The format is approximately 5.75 inches by 8.5 inches. xv, [3], 267 pages. Notes. Further Reading. Inscribed by the author on the title page. Inscription reads For Lisa, Thank you for introducing me so nicely and warmly at Aspen! With admiration and gratitude Bill July 2011. William Powers (born March 14, 1961) is an American writer, journalist, and technologist. He is the author of Hamlet's BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age. Powers graduated from Harvard University with a degree in history and literature. He was a U.S. Senate aide working on foreign relations, intelligence and military affairs. Powers joined The Washington Post. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times and many other publications. He created The New Republic's first media column, and wrote a column about the intersection of media and politics that appeared in Atlantic Media's National Journal and The Atlantic online. Powers is a two-time winner of the National Press Club's Rowse Award for media criticism. He was a Media Fellow at Harvard's Shorenstein Center and a resident fellow at the MacDowell Colony. He has given keynote talks at conferences such as South by Southwest and the Aspen Ideas Festival. 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? Hamlet's BlackBerry challenges the widely held assumption that the more we connect through technology, the better. It's time to strike a new balance, William Powers argues, and discover why it's also important to disconnect. Part memoir, part intellectual journey, the book draws on the technological past and great thinkers such as Shakespeare and Thoreau. Connectedness has been considered from an organizational and economic standpoint, from Here Comes Everybody to Wikinomics, but Powers examines it on a deep interpersonal, psychological, and emotional level. Derived from a Kirkus review: A deconstruction of the notion that total connectedness brings happiness—or even productivity—and a concise guide to navigating social technology without sacrificing the personal or professional interactions that draw us there in the first place. Former Washington Post staff writer Powers argues that space (from connectedness) and balance (within it) are the most integral tenets to maintaining sanity within the increasingly plugged-in world. The author dubs the idea of continual connectedness "Digital Maximalism," a phenomenon that is "encouraging the unhealthy extreme, the digital equivalent of alcoholism." To frame his argument, Powers looks at seven renowned intellectuals and the historical movements to which they are pegged. These include Plato, and the need for occasional distance from the crowd; Gutenberg, and the idea that technology can be utilized to reflect inwardly; Franklin, and the benefit of establishing positive rituals; and Thoreau, whose Walden Pond experiment resulted in the valuable notion that solitude is a necessary part of sustaining a social existence. These ideas are echoed in the author's argument that serial focus results in less depth of experience, because endless screen time precludes true introspection. The author also asserts that it's not too late to effect positive changes in our digital habits. He proposes easy modifications like Internet-free weekends, vacations without cell phones, eschewing smart phones to eliminate the temptation to check e-mail when not at a computer, or blocking office workers from accessing e-mail for an hour or two per day. It's the philosophy behind the suggestions that brings about positive and habitual change, and the author has found that routine is the key to success. Provides new insights and the book is interestingly packaged.