Douglas Rushkoff Quotes

The way we live is changing. Each year, our free time shrinks a little more as computers clamor for an increasing percentage of our attention.

I'm always wondering: Have all these time-saving devices actually saved us any time, or have they just created a million fetishes and obsessions that keep us from the quiet half hour we should be taking to sit and do nothing every day?

Cell phones, mobile e-mail, and all the other cool and slick gadgets can cause massive losses in our creative output and overall productivity.

In barely one generation, we've moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them - often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug.

The love in the old days had a certain grace, quintessential feel to it. Now everybody is busy in their phones.

HOBBES: All this modern technology just makes people try to do everything at once.

I don't get up and look at e-mail. I don't even know my e-mail address. I needed one just to have a computer put on. But I never, ever even thought of going to it. It's just not what I'm about. I just don't want to waste my life with it. It's just too much; I think people are just a little too absorbed in all of that.

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.

Before, if your phone was busy, your phone was busy. You had no cell phone. Now people work 24/7, their BlackBerry keeps them busy, and e-mail - and when do they have time for other pursuits? When do they have time to be politically active?

People are always looking at their phones and computer. It's the first place people turn in the morning and where everyone's keeping in touch and getting their news.

I am so sorry to see the state of reading in such decline. I think it says something really scary and terrible about us as a culture. I think it does have to do with everyone's total global embrace of technology.

It takes 25 minutes to recover from a phone call or an e-mail, researchers have found, and yet the average person receives such an interruption every 11 minutes. Which means that we're never caught up; we're always out of breath, running behind.

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

I learned not to confuse 'busy' with 'productive,' but I'm still far too addicted to email to resist its early-morning digital snuggles.

I used to work for 12 or 14 hours at a time but the digital age has made such happy immersions almost impossible.

I have a choice - I can either watch all the dailies, or I can follow the social media. I can't do both.

I'm not one of those people who sits at dinner on their iPhone all night. I'm either working or I'm not. I've gone down that path where you sleep with your phone beside the bed and send an email just before you put your head down and check everything again when you wake up, and I don't like it.

Workers in government, the arts, and industry report that the sheer volume of email they receive is overwhelming, taking a huge bite out of their day. We feel obliged to answer our emails, but it seems impossible to do so and get anything else done.

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.

I see a lot of moms and dads frustrated because their kids have their devices at the dinner table and they can't seem to get their attention as much as they used to.

You look out on the street, and everyone has their heads in their phones. Nobody's really looking up at the sky or the buildings and taking the day in. I try to be conscious of it, but everybody falls prey to it.

There are managers so preoccupied with their e-mail messages that they never look up from their screens to see what's happening in the nondigital world

The nerds provide the toys that distract the morons. So the nerds are sort of the new drug-dealers. We're the drug dealers of the 21st century because we provide all the brain candy for the mouth-breathers, for lack of a better word.

You can have information or you can have a life, but you can't have both.

We're in a digital age where it's cool to be on your iPhone all the time. All of out-of-school activities my daughter has such as piano one day and acting another day and dance another day are about getting her away from that. People are on video games and their phones, and it's taking up all their mental space.