I am just being bombarded lately with intersting articles about the future of reading and even the future of relationoships in the digital age.

From the latest in a SLEW of titles.

Digital Demands – The Challenges of Constant Connectivity

Sherry Turkle: What I’m seeing is a generation that says consistently, “I would rather text than make a telephone call.” Why? It’s less risky. I can just get the information out there. I don’t have to get all involved; it’s more efficient. I would rather text than see somebody face to face.

There’s this sense that you can have the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. The real demands of friendship, of intimacy, are complicated. They’re hard. They involve a lot of negotiation. They’re all the things that are difficult about adolescence. And adolescence is the time when people are using technology to skip and to cut corners and to not have to do some of these very hard things. One of the things I’ve found with continual connectivity is there’s an anxiety of disconnection; that these teens have a kind of panic. They say things like, “I lost my iPhone; it felt like somebody died, as though I’d lost my mind.” The technology is already part of them.

For this, and MANY other fascinating articles, check out this link (a list of articles from my Instapaper account).