Alan Jacobs

Backlit screens are something we’ve grown very used to without realizing what they’ve done to our way of thinking. They are hypnotic, arresting, and distracting. No matter how small a backlit screen is, it quickly occupies your whole field of vision. It ruins your sense of your surroundings in the same way a flashlight ruins your night-vision. It is, to my mind, the single biggest reason that we find ourselves trying to divide our attentions between a “real-life” world and a “digital” world – an unnecessary and ultimately wearisome paradigm.