Book review: Hamlet's Blackberry

If you or someone you love feels overloaded by technology (email, Twitter, i-everything) and is open to a solution, read on! (Everyone who has no issues, continue on to a Twitter feed of your choice.)

OK. For those of you still here: let's talk about how to attack the problem.

Any discussion of information overload has - or should have - these two parts:

Part 1: the description. Overload is a big hairy intractable problem and it's stressing us all out and killing our productivity, and it's getting worse every day.

Part 2: the solution. Fortunately, there's a permanent fix. The following will work today, tomorrow, and the day after that...

Writing about (1) without (2) is just depressing. "Here, let me describe our collective pain in 18 different ways! How awful! Wish there was some way out! Barf! Anyway, good luck with it."

But that's precisely how most articles, books, and other media have covered the issue to date. They describe the effects of ubiquitous technology, relate some anecdotes of people buried and distracted, and finally throw up their hands with a to-heck-with-it-all closing. For a recent example, see Salon.com's piece last month called No more vacation: How technology is stealing our lives, which which bemoans "the monster that is consuming us" and ends with this: "Without retreating to some heretical call to smash the machines, I wonder if it wouldn't do us all some good to stuff them all in a locker for an hour and go for a swim."

Let me be clear that it's important to write about the problem of information overload. The Salon article offers a compelling Part 1. But that's not enough. People need a solution, not just a lyrical complaint about our plight. Some articles go so far as to suggest a few easy tips 'n' tricks - maybe try turning off your email for awhile! Maybe go for a walk! - but still don't offer a solution that addresses the underlying problems of busy-ness and anxiety.

A few years ago I attempted to give readers a permanent solution to info overload in my book Bit Literacy. I still work on this problem (see how to solve email overload), so you can understand my interest when I heard the subtitle of Hamlet's Blackberry, the new book by William Powers: "A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age."

No kidding?!, I thought. Someone has actually written a book with a witty title (something I missed, oops) and that includes a practical philosophy for fixing this problem?

I dove in and found the beginning of the book, appropriately enough, describing the problem. Not only is this Part 1 written well, it makes many of the same points I tried to get across in my own book:

"The more connected we are, the heavier the yoke." (p. 63) A nice complement to the first sentence of my book, "Bits are heavy."

"By using screens as we do now, constantly jumping around, [we] have fewer ingenious moments and bring less associative creativity to whatever kind of work we do." (p. 61)

"If the digital era has taught us anything, it's that a new technology frequently creates more more work than it saves." (p. 72)

"...there are some experiences [screens] can't deliver, and those happen to be the most important ones. ... it's up to us as individuals to use that power." (p. 77)

This whole first section of "Hamlet's Blackberry" covers the tension between the internal, contemplative life and the external, connected life - well-written, as I say, and making a strong case for the need for a real solution.

The book then covers seven thinkers - from Plato to McLuhan - whose work had some connection to information overload. All interesting material. But by the end of McLuhan, there are only a few pages left in the book - and I had to think, ahem, when are we going to get to the solution?

The bulk of the "practical philosophy" promised in the subtitle is in the final two chapters - one offering a few tentative tips 'n' tricks, and then a final chapter describing Powers's experience with the "digital sabbath" he and his family now practice, with some success. And that's it. The "practical philosophy" we're left with is, essentially, try not to go online on Sunday. A fine suggestion, but not a solution. People need a way to enjoy life with less stress on other days of the week, too!

I'm happy to see "Hamlet's Blackberry" on bookshelves as it's possibly the richest and most engaging description of the problem of information overload that I've read yet. But I'm still waiting for another book, past "Bit Literacy," to offer a robust philosophy for solving this problem permanently.

If you're interested, the solution in Bit Literacy can be summed up this way: Become more focused, and more productive, during the time you're connected. (Said another way, "let the bits go.") This way you achieve emptiness, and become "done," as soon as possible. Once you're done, you can confidently disconnect, go outside, and have some real - not virtual - good experiences.

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• Aug 10, 2010
• IN: Bit Literacy
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