Douglas Rushkoff Quotes

Teenagers talk about the idea of having each other's 'full attention.' They grew up in a culture of distraction. They remember their parents were on cell phones when they were pushed on swings as toddlers. Now, their parents text at the dinner table and don't look up from their BlackBerry when they come for end-of-school day pickup.

People try to function in the real world - the analog world - while they're texting in the digital world, and they run into the car in front of them. It doesn't work to be in both.

We're plugged in 24 hours a day now. We're all part of one big machine, whether we are conscious of that or not. And if we can't unplug from that machine, eventually we're going to become mindless.

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.

The devices that our kids use are shipped from the factory with every possible audio, visual or vibration alert switched on. Each new app, website, tweet and message adds another layer of intrusion - each intrusion is cynically designed to get a response, and each response creates an appetite for another intrusion.

I do think we've become so reliant that the phones are never out of our reach. We're always trying to stay connected that way and the irony is that it's actually disconnecting us from everything else because we're not just focused on what's in front of us; we focus on what's in our hand or off to the side.

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 hate technology and cellphones. I hate having to have one all of the time. I don't tweet or buzz or bing or whatever! It's a conscious thing - I hate the way that it can take over young people's lives.

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

I realize how myself and other people have started to almost fool ourselves that it's more important to us and more real than the real world, the offline world, and we value looking at our phone and pixels on a screen more than connecting eye to eye with a human being, which is terrifying to me because we're becoming robots.

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.

In every public space, everyone has their head down on their phone. Including me.

My life is now a constant assessment of whether what's happening in real life is more entertaining than what's happening on my phone.

We have too many cellphones. We've got too many internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.

Every time I start chasing my tail, and I'm trying to control all these elements of my universe, I pray, 'I'm not in control of any of this. I can just do the best I can. Please guide me. Please help me figure how I can move through this in the way You would have me.'

Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we're too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.

I have mixed feelings about how fast things are changing as a result of technology. There's no denying that through technology there are amazing things being created that help people with diseases or help people's dreams come true. But there's also this obsession. Social media is the most dangerous of them all.

I wish I wasn't so in love, wasn't so interested, in the Internet. I wish I spent less time online and more time outside and in my head. Writing requires solitude and deep, deep daydreaming, and the Internet just kills that - its lure is toward the external; it asks you to flit from place to place.

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.

My goal every time I make a record is just to make the funkiest, the best music I could possibly make, both lyrically, and music-wise.

I realise that every time my face is on TV or I'm playing in a tournament, that I am a role model for a lot of people and a lot of kids do look up to me. I try to do my best in that regard and put myself across as honestly and as modestly as possible, as well.

Computers tend to separate us from each other - Mum's on the laptop, Dad's on the iPad, teenagers are on Facebook, toddlers are on the DS, and so on.

I see Vostok-6 quite often in the centre for cosmonaut training. And every time I pass it by, I stroke it and say, 'My lovely one, my best and most beautiful friend, my best and most beautiful man.'

I have two measures every time I look at a bill. Is this in the best interests of the hardworking taxpayers in Northeast Ohio and the 14th District, and will this stimulate or encourage the economy to work?

If you play it safe every time, then you're missing the best part of acting. You haven't learned anything about your humanity.