The Humanitas Forum

If you don’t carry a smartphone you’re old, odd, or eccentric.  You are hopelessly out of step with the times, according to conventional wisdom.  But is this wisdom?  Or, more precisely, convention without wisdom? 

Technology …

It may be the techies themselves who give us some of our better advice in the debate about the use of communications technology.  Kevin Kelly, senior maverick for Wired magazine, has written that smartphones are the new “sugar and …

Friendship, like family and community, has fallen on hard times in our modern world.  Mobility, busyness, digital technology and numerous other factors have contributed to the thinning—if not the disappearance—of “true friendship.”  Friendship has become “the characteristically modern …

“We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us” wrote communications expert Marshall McLuhan in the early 1960s.  His assessment of the various communications media (radio, television, movies, telephones, and computers) was simply, “We become what we behold.”…

To the worm in horse radish, the whole world is horse radish, runs the old Yiddish proverb.  The same might be said of Americans and popular culture.  Since it’s all we know, it’s quite often invisible.

Unfortunately, …

Understanding the social impact of Facebook and the other social media is an ongoing challenge.  Yes, it helps us stay in touch with lots of friends and acquaintances.  It’s a good way to quickly pass on certain kinds …

Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral.  This is a lesson taught by Plato and repeated by Neil Postman.  The French sociologist Jacques Ellul makes the same point and so does historian of science Melvin …

Phubbing is phone-snubbing.  It happens when someone pays attention to their mobile phone instead of the people in their immediate presence.  Many of us are guilty!  We’re also guilty of excusing our companions when they reach for …

What does it profit a man if he gains 130,427 Twitter followers and loses his own soul?  The best person to answer this question is Sammy Rhodes who, in his own words, became “irrepressibly and obsessively hooked” on Twitter.…

The Web gives; the Web takes away.  Blessed is the person who understands how the Web works.

·         It enables 24/7 connections and the possibility of “multitasking.”  It takes away “mindfulness”—the ability to focus on the …