The ancient monks’ most glorious libraries contained less information than the average smartphone. But their habits of receptivity and assimilation can empower us to lift our gaze from our screens ennobled rather than enslaved. Continue Reading »
According to Gallup, less than one-third of the U.S. population describes itself as socially liberal. Yet in 2012, more than 95 percent of Ivy League faculty and employees who donated money to a presidential candidate did so to Obama. The same is true of employees at Facebook, Google, and Apple. Any . . . . Continue Reading »
On Facebook people connect using their real names and identities.” “Titles of any kind” are forbidden; “the name you use should be your authentic identity.” So reads Facebook’s official policy, and among those affected are priests using the title “Father.”Priests cannot call . . . . Continue Reading »
Cybertheology: Thinking Christianity in the Era of the Internet by antonio spadaro fordham, 160 pages, $24 The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Businesses, and Our Lives by eric schmidt and jared cohen random house, 368 pages, $15.95 To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological . . . . Continue Reading »
Facebook users have run across a quiz purporting to measure one’s mental age against one’s actual physical age. I can’t see the point of it but, so what, I took it anyway. Twice, actuallyI was dissatisfied with the first result. Mental age is subjective and my subjectivity suggested something different than Facebook’s. Continue Reading »
In a Doonesbury cartoon of recent vintage, Zipper, nephew to the 1960s slacker Zonker Harris, sits in a college class, his laptop open before him, giving every impression of industrious note-taking: Tap tap tappity tap tap. “Dude,” a classmate instant-messages him. “The professor’s calling . . . . Continue Reading »