People are seduced by signals from the world, but that is manipulation, not reality. Computers have learned more about us than we've learned about them.

I don't think tablets are where we should be focused. But I do think they could end up being an efficient way of delivering textbooks. They're just not really that, yet. There's all sorts of poisons and mined minerals and carnage that goes on to make a tablet. Way more than to print a book. Or a bunch of books.

Corporations [gained] direct access to what we may think of as our humanity, emotions, and agency but, in this context, are really just buttons.

Social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It's the people that matter, not the venue. So when the trend leaders of one social niche or another decide the place everyone is socializing has lost its luster or, more important, its exclusivity, they move on to the next one, taking their followers with them.

The competitive advantage professional journalism enjoys over the free is just that: professional journalists, whose paid positions give them the time and resources they need to commit more fully to the task. If we can't do better, so be it.

We know that people are less open in conversations if the other conversant puts a cell phone on the table. Even if it's turned off. The sign is enough to close the mind and make a prospective client or lover less likely to do what you ask. As people realize this, they'll start putting away phones or turning them off.

On Facebook, your past comes into your present when someone from your second grade class suddenly pops up to send you a message, and your future is being manipulated by what Facebook knows to put in front of you next.