Separation anxiety is assuaged by constant connection. Young people announce every detail of their lives on services like Twitter not to show off, but to avoid the closed door at bedtime, the empty room, the screaming vacuum of an isolated mind.
Interpretation
Separation anxiety can be reduced through consistent communication and connection, especially among young people who often share their lives online.
This quote by Jaron Lanier highlights the modern phenomenon of young people maintaining a constant online presence as a means to cope with feelings of loneliness and separation. Instead of merely seeking attention, their sharing on social media platforms is a defensive reaction to the isolation they may feel, particularly at vulnerable times like bedtime. The 'empty room' and 'isolated mind' illustrate the profound emotional challenges they face when disconnected from others.
In practice
In a speech about mental health, one might say, 'As Jaron Lanier noted, separation anxiety is assuaged by constant connection, reminding us to stay engaged with our loved ones.'
Pop culture has entered into a nostalgic malaise. Online culture is dominated by trivial mashups of the culture that existed before the onset of mashups, and by fandom responding to the dwindling outposts of centralized mass media. It is a culture of reaction without action.
We're losing track of the vastness of the potential for computer science. We really have to revive the beautiful intellectual joy of it, as opposed to the business potential.
Web 2.0 ideas have a chirpy, cheerful rhetoric to them, but I think they consistently express a profound pessimism about humans, human nature and the human future.
Facebook says, 'Privacy is theft,' because they're selling your lack of privacy to the advertisers who might show up one day.
I mean, you can't have advertising be the only official business of the information economy if the information economy is going to take over.
When you have a global mush, people lose their identity, they become pseudonyms, they have no investment and no consequence in what they do.
Every hour that passed added to her grief, because it bore her further away from the living man, and because it was a tiny foretaste of the eternity she would have to spend without him.
Few males achieve any real freedom in their sexual relations even with their wives. Few males realise how badly inhibited they are on these matters.
Here's to woman! Would that we could fold into her arms without falling into her hands.
Sometimes the greatest deterrent to a great marriage is believing you have a perfect marriage.
The government has to treat all citizens equally. I am a strong supporter not of a weak version of civil unions, but of a strong version, in which the rights that are conferred at the federal level to persons who are part of the same-sex union are compatible. When it comes to federal rights, the over 1,100 rights that right now are not being given to same-sex couples, I think that's unacceptable.
I know that I need honesty from the people I interview. I also know that the truth is more interesting than made up stuff, and also, people don't connect with you if you're not honest.
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