we seem determined to give human qualities to objects and content to treat each other as things.

Does virtual intimacy degrade our experience of the other kind and, indeed, of all encounters, of any kind?

Teenagers would rather text than talk. They feel calls would reveal too much.

We expect more from technology and less from each other. We create technology to provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.

Technology proposes itself as the architect of our intimacies.

Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I'd like to learn how to have a conversation.

These days, when people are alone, or feel a moment of boredom, they tend to reach for a device. In a movie theater, at a stop sign, at the checkout line at a supermarket and, yes, at a memorial service, reaching for a device becomes so natural that we start to forget that there is a reason, a good reason, to sit still with our thoughts: It does honor to what we are thinking about. It does honor to ourselves.