The End of Absence

The generation growing up with the Internet will not know what it means to be unplugged. But those of us who have lived both with and without the crowded connectivity of the Internet have a rare opportunity—we can still recognize the difference between Before and After. We catch ourselves idly reaching for our phones at the bus stop, or we notice how a friend dives into Google during a conversation, mid-sentence. In this eloquent and thought-provoking book, Michael Harris argues that amid all the changes we're experiencing, the most interesting is the loss of absence—the end of silence. There's no real spare time when you carry a smartphone; today's rarest commodity is your own thoughts.