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

'Digiphrenia' is really the experience of trying to exist in more than one incarnation of yourself at the same time. There's your Twitter profile, there's your Facebook profile, there's your email inbox. And all of these sort of multiple instances of you are operating simultaneously and in parallel.

I feel like the smartest people in my field are busy reinforcing the old models with new technology.

Invest in people who will take care of you when you're old.

The first step toward maintaining autonomy in any programmed environment is to be aware that there's programming going on. It's as simple as understanding the commercials are there to help sell things. And that TV shows are there to sell commercials, and so on.

As a digital technology writer, I have had more than one former student and colleague tell me about digital switchers they have serviced through which calls and data are diverted to government servers or the big data algorithms they've written to be used on our e-mails by intelligence agencies.

We have the alternative. "Do I want to be on the subway looking at these people, or do I want to be in my phone looking at my people?"