If The Internet Was A Place

The difference between schools and libraries

From John Taylor Gatto’s The Underground History of American Education (via Austin Kleon):

To begin with, libraries are usually comfortable, clean, and quiet. They are orderly places where you can actually read instead of just pretending to read.

For some reason libraries are never age-segregated, nor do

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However, Moments has a weakness. It’s caused users to want to leave Moments. Because it is like a town square, when you like or comment on something it’s akin to shouting in the town square. Everyone can hear you. This creates more stress for users. Moreover, as your friend list increases, the stress becomes greater.

If you watch television for 8 hours in a row, you might feel that you watched too much television. You would have a feeling that you wanted to get up and go do something else. Smart-phones specifically, unlike any other previous screen, are located on the body and taken everywhere. Without a conscious disconnnection practice, there is no getting up

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I was walking the dog this morning and I was reflecting on how the things we build on the digital world seem to mirror what we build on the physical one. Big social media platforms are the metropolis: dense, busy, chaotic. They’re the place that never sleeps and there’s always something new going on. Something new to see, something new to do.... See more

The site is also like a home in that it’s a collection of many things which are unified only by the person who collected them. I feel as if someone is giving me a tour of their apartment: I’m looking at the papers on his desk, the notes stuck to his fridge, an album of butterfly photos taken by his brother, and so on. Sure, he probably tidied up... See more

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. ― Jorge Luis Borges

in the last decade, technology has transformed from a tool that we use to a place where we live. If we’re setting out to change the character of technology in our lives, we’d be wise to learn from the character of places.