Our around-the-clock overexposure to global human suffering, our daily feed of what we once considered catastrophic events — political, ecological, cultural — when combined with diminished attention spans, smaller and smaller chunks of content, and baked-in cross-platform imperatives to remain emotionally removed from any given person, place, or... See more

Is an online relationship as honest, open and palpable as a face-to-face relationship? Does the absence of taste, touch, smell – or blood, sweat and tears for that matter – make a difference in the quality of what is experienced? Is immersion in a video game or chat room the same as playing a game on a wet grassy field, or congregating with an... See more

The upshot of device-mediated encounters is that they may be benign in single instances but collectively they are alarming. The larger question is where we are headed with such encounters. How do they impact our capacity to love, to be present to one another, to sort out what deeply matters about oneself and life? What impact do they have on human... See more