The joys of solitude and quiet

In an interesting piece Pico Iyer extolls the value of solitude and quiet.

He notes that the   average American spends at least eight and a half hours a day in front of a screen and the average American teenager sends or receives 75 text messages a day. It is a common sight to find businessmen plugged to their Blackberries as soon as they get off a plane and teenagers not moving their eyes off their iphones even during dinner. Social conversation has reached a new low as everyone seems to be busy finding out new information and data. Parents have started complaining that their children may be home now but their minds are not. But now a reaction has set in. Now many people want nothing more than to get away from the very devices that keep them constantly plugged in to the world all the time. 

As  Iyer observes "In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them — often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug. Like teenagers, we appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much all but overnight...We have more and more ways to communicate, as Thoreau noted, but less and less to say. " The fact is we are now so overwhelmed with readily availble data that we confuse it with information. We rarely have time to organize the data into some form of reconizable information much less into any kind of knowledge. We thus confuse data with information, information for knowledge and knowledge for wisdom.

But slowly this paradox is sinking in. And since luxury, as any economist will tell you, is a function of scarcity, the children of tomorrow will crave nothing more than freedom, if only for a short while, from all the blinking machines, streaming videos and scrolling headlines that leave them feeling empty and too full all at once. Perhaps they will realize the difference between what important and what is essential. And we too need to make a start in seeking some quiet moments in our lives to contemplate and reflect on all we learn. Iyer suggests turning off the internet for a few hours or for the weekend and to take to some retreats periodically to get away from it all.  I have found the perfect answer- I sit and play with my grandson who demands constant attention and complete dedication!