All of those things can, in this day and age, be somewhat usefully summarized like this: Airplane mode! That is to say: turn off your radio for a while and ju

All of those things can, in this day and age, be somewhat usefully summarized like this: Airplane mode! That is to say: turn off your radio for a while and just sit down, or maybe go for a walk or a swim. Marshall McLuhan, who was extremely interested in the nervous and mental changes brought on by network technology, wrote in 1966: With the telegraph Western man began a process of putting his nerves outside his body. Previous technologies had been extensions of physical organs: the wheel is a putting-outside-ourselves of the feet; the city wall is a collective outering of the skin. But electronic media are, instead, extensions of the central nervous system, an inclusive and simultaneous field. Since the telegraph we have extended the brains and nerves of man around the globe. As a result, the electronic age endures a total uneasiness, as of a man wearing his skull inside and his brain outside.