Nancy Jo Sales Quotes

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 think it's the tragedy of our time that we're not aware of the affect of the manner in which we've adopted tools. Those tools have become who we are.

Communications technology changes possibilities for communication, but that doesn't mean it changes the inherited structure of the brain. So you may think that you're addicted to online reading, but as soon as it isn't available anymore, your brain will pretty immediately adjust to other forms of reading. It's a habit like all habits.

The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.

People are naming it the Third Wave, the Information Age, etc. but I would say those are basically technological descriptions, and this next shift is not about technology - although obviously it will be influenced and in some cases expressed by technologies.

I don't know how to write a novel in the world of cellphones. I don't know how to write a novel in the world of Google, in which all factual information is available to all characters. So I have to stand on my head to contrive a plot in which the characters lose their cellphone and are separated from technology.

Mediums change you by their very existence. They do this on fundamental levels because they force you to favour certain parts of your brain over others.

Technology doesn't just do things for us. It does things to us, changing not just what we do but who we are.

We have something very powerful in our hands with the Internet, and we still don't really understand fully its power.

After we become literate, we literally 'think differently' about language: images of brain activation between literate and nonliterate humans bear this out.

There’s no denying the benefits of the Internet. But electronic immersion, without a force to balance it, creates the hole in the boat — draining our ability to pay attention, to think clearly, to be productive and creative.

Those who grew up digital have different brains.

Computerization brings about an essential change in the way the worker can know the world and, with it, a crisis of confidence inthe possibility of certain knowledge.

I'm ambivalent about tech.

There are no genes or areas in the brain devoted uniquely to reading. Rather, our ability to read represents our brain's protean capacity to learn something outside our repertoire by creating new circuits that connect existing circuits in a different way.

That's what technology does to you - makes you lazy but allows you to innovate.

I grew up using maps and having a sense of direction, and now I have a phone. I used to try to remember numbers, and now I... can just call them up instantly. And that's great. But what's happening right now is that we're in a phase of human evolution where we're merging with machines.

The digital economy is impacting us in a big way.

I think people are really desperate for conversations. I'm really fascinated by the idea that at the same time, the internet is sort of expunging our attention spans.

In the environment of the mobile Internet, there is value and need to explore every commercial context. What I care about is not just technology but the changes in people's behavior in this environment, which makes it possible that everyone can get connected with everyone else.

Name any issue in the world, I can tell you how technology is intertwined with it. I can tell you how technology will make it better. How it can make it worse. It needs to be part of everything that we do, whether you are a government or a company or a citizen.

Reading or written language is a cultural invention that necessitated totally new connections among structures in the human brain underlying language, perception, cognition, and, over time, our emotions.

The question I want to put forward is, 'Does the technology we are developing ultimately benefit mankind?'

Technology is now part of the social fabric; it is what is causing dislocation. It is the cause of fear amongst all of us.

The world is so heavily influenced by technology, and it has started to feel like it's not on solid ground. The world has become unreliable, unknowable. Facts are vulnerable, and things you have come to rely on are no longer there.