What does the contemporary self want? […] It wants to be recognized, wants to be connected: It wants to be visible. If not to the millions, on Survivor or Oprah, then to the hundreds, on Twitter or Facebook.
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If boredom is the great emotion of the TV generation, loneliness is the great emotion of the Web generation. We lost the ability to be still, our capacity for idleness. They have lost the ability to be alone, their capacity for solitude.
Food for thought. Everyone should read Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (Amazon.com, Amazon UK) the paean to solitude.