Jessica Valenti Quotes

It's probably this way with a lot of professionals: At first the BlackBerry is a savior, because it makes you mobile, but then it becomes a curse, because you're at a restaurant and looking down at it under the table.

Look around you in any restaurant, and you will see couples, families, and friends glued to their phones.

Kids are so accustomed to technology that it's upsetting to watch them without their phones. They don't know what to do. Sometimes I feel like I'm like that, too - if I get my phone taken away because I'm grounded, I don't know what to do. So I just have to sit in my room and stare blankly at the ceiling.

I'd like to pretend to be all Olympian and above it, as if this is a phenomenon I'm observing from a great height, nothing to do with my own behavior at all - but the fact is I'm absolutely one of those people in the cafe staring at my phone.

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

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

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

Texting is addicting. Once you get emotionally involved with constant outside stimulation assaulting your brain, it is hard to stop looking at your machine every two minutes. Without rapid fire words appearing on a screen, you feel bored, not part of the action.

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

The world is beset by many problems, but in my opinion, this hijacking of our brain's reward centers by electronic media is potentially one of the most destructive.

I don't let the computer into my bedroom. It would get in the way of life, sleep. And I really can't let that happen.

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?'

Our attention spans have been reduced by the immediate gratification provided by smartphones and social media.

You see families at a restaurant and the kids are on the phone and the adults are on the phone. It's just a catastrophe.

Modern life has gotten so strange, we all get 150 emails and text messages a day, and it's hard when things are moving that quickly to keep that sense of wonder about being alive.

Kids are plugged into some sort of electronic medium 44 hours per week.

I, like many people, am constantly on my phone.

We're getting so pulled in by computers and technology, and our kids have their face in the computers all day. The human relationship is being diminished by this.

Rather than bringing me closer to others, the time that I spend online isolates me from the most important people in my life, my family, my friends, my neighbourhood, my community.

Our generation, unfortunately, is stuck to our phones - and, like, Twitter - constantly, which I have no problem with. I'd say we're not describing the children of America or anything like that, but there is something to take from it: It is kind of sad how we can't go thirty minutes without checking our phone.

Entire books are being written about the distractions of social media. I don't believe media compel distraction, but I think it's clear that they afford it.

I spend so much time on the screen when I am writing, the last thing you want to do is spend more time on the Internet looking at a screen. That's what I hate about all this technology.

I hear the same anxieties over and over again. Everything is too fast; everything is too precarious. We have more access than ever to the people we are trying to reach, thanks to social media and mobile technology, and more information than we know what to do with.

I have a phone obsession. It's really hard on set sometimes because I'll be checking Instagram, and then I have to remember, 'Oh, crap, I have to shoot a scene or rehearse.' Every now and then, I have to turn it off and live my life.

When you're directed by social media, I think it's very easy to lose a sense of agency. And you can see it when you go to any subway station, you walk down any street in a city, you will see 70-80 percent of people staring into their phones as they walk or stand.