John Grant Quotes

Sometimes you have to disconnect to stay connected. Remember the old days when you had eye contact during a conversation? When everyone wasn't looking down at a device in their hands? We've become so focused on that tiny screen that we forget the big picture, the people right in front of us.

There's something really terrible about having your BlackBerry next to your bed or having your laptop in the living room when you're talking to someone. The biggest source of stress in my life is the screen, the blogging.

Sometimes my husband has to literally pull me away from the computer.

Your computer needn't be the first thing your see in the morning and the last thing you see at night.

I can live without endless television programmes and films just centered around computers. I can sort of live without that.

When I'm doing work online or on the computer, it's one thing. When I want to read, I want to go elsewhere, and I want to be away from the screen.

I'm not one of those guys who walks around with a flip phone who doesn't want to be connected. There are times when I'm tech-friendly, and there are times when I personally do want to shut everything off because I'm more creative when I shut off.

There are plenty of reasons to put our cellphones down now and then, not least the fact that incessantly checking them takes us out of the present moment and disrupts family dinners around the globe.

Yes, I'm grateful for technology. But I'm also happy for the off switch.

Almost every time I go to the ocean, I think about throwing my phone right into it. Sometimes, you pull that thing out of your pocket, you look at it, and you're like, 'What was I just going to do with this? Was I going to take a note? Was I going to check my email? Was I going to take a picture?'

I don't try to attach myself to technology so much. I'm on my phone a lot, though, but in the off season, I try to get away from it as much as I can.

I have my phone by my bed - I know everyone says you're supposed to turn it off - and it distorts your sleep, and they're probably right.

For a while, I had a rule of no smartphone in bed, but now I've upgraded to no smartphone in the bedroom. The fact that we need rules shows how much these things have invaded our lives.

I am not a big technology person. I don't go on the Internet really much at all. Drawing is like a zen thing; it's private, which in this day and age is harder to come by.

Even before smart phones and the Internet, we had many ways to distract our selves. Now that's compounded by a factor of trillions.

I am the first to admit my iPad is the coolest thing in the world, but when we can be in a room together and really connect, or leave the gadgets home and go for a hike, then I'm happy.

It takes tough love to order kids to step away from the iPhone or iPad during dinner or to take the devices away if they're interrupting and interfering with everyone else's pleasure at a movie, concert or other public event.

I'm very tech-forward. However, I also think hitting the pause button is not a bad thing, and really connecting with people one-to-one viscerally, having a connection with someone, is really important.

Technology is notorious for engrossing people so much that they don't always focus on balance and enjoy life at the same time.

I still find it absurdly difficult to concentrate on a novel if there's a phone or computer to hand; I have taken to locking them outside the room like noisy pets.

Kids have so much screen time, and it's a concern. I know how overloaded I can feel sometimes.

My mind is constantly going. For me to completely relax, I gotta get rid of my cell phone.

I deliberately keep myself apart from a lot of stuff; I don't Tweet, I don't do Facebook, I don't blog, and that's largely because I spend my working life staring at a screen and hitting a keyboard, I am trying to cut down on that, not increase it.

If I was a parent or a kid, I would need a cell phone, and those things are invaluable, but my kids are out of the house now, and I am thrilled when I wake up to not have a cell phone, and feel like today is stretching out in front of me for 1,000 hours, as it seems.

I'd like to scale back the television. I'm constantly told that I'm over-exposed, and I don't want to end up like Carol Vorderman.