Howard Rheingold Quotes

Tech is all about building human connections.

Think about back in the day when we had Archie Bunker, 'The Jeffersons.' We had stuff to sit down and share and laugh at. The Internet has made it so we don't have to sit together anymore. It's so self-absorbed. No one has to talk to each other anymore, and people don't realize that that is killing us.

As a human being, you know that there are some days when you'd rather not talk to anybody - but I can't really do that anymore without appearing rude.

Technology is changing the way we interact as humans.

In an odd sort of way, the computer and the Internet is the hermit's ideal form of communication. You don't have to see anyone. To send an email, you don't have to talk to anyone. You can just send it, and they'll read it on their own. The Internet has been really good for hermits.

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.

With technology, there is so much isolation with people now, that there are very few places where you can connect.

I'm shy and can't for the life of me barge around and slap people on the back. I sit in a corner by myself and am tickled to death when someone comes over to talk to me.

Technologies tend to undermine community and encourage individualism.

The world is becoming nicer and easier, but that doesn't mean we are any less lonely or any more connected.

In this age of media and Internet access, we are much more talkative than ever before.

The more technology we introduce into society, the more people will aggregate, will want to be with other people: movies, rock concerts, shopping.

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.

I have days where the only words I say are to the person making my sandwich at the grocery store.

The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even of printing.

In America, everyone writes but no one reads. Everyone's writing all day long - sending emails, tweets, text messages; they all think they're James Cameron's Avatar, performing in some video game for which they make up the script.

The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.

Look, I live in the modern world as much as anyone else.

I can go days without meaningful human interaction.

All this technology for connection and what we really only know more about is how anonymous we are in the grand scheme of things.

There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.

We have more and more ways to communicate, as Thoreau noted, but less and less to say.

I was always such a people-watcher. I would sit on street corners alone and watch people and make up stories about them in my head. Then, all of a sudden, I was the one being watched.

It's a great thing to live in a digital age. It's convenient; it's fast.

What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic technology revolution. Shyness is fueled in part by so many people spending huge amounts of time alone, isolated on e-mail, in chat rooms, which reduces their face-to-face contact with other people.