Fresh out of batteries but they're still making noise

HAMLET'S BLACKBERRY reminded me of two other books I read this year, Nicholas Carr's THE SHALLOWS and Matthew B. Crawford's SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT; author William Powers attempts to do for the modern world's emotional lives what Carr did for the modern brain, then offers philosophical solutions like Crawford's to problems of technological encroachment and digital distraction. That it's such a hybrid doesn't work well in its favor; I liked the book just about enough to finish but didn't get what I was really looking for.

The author contends, based on an essay he wrote as a fellow at Harvard (available here for free), that technology has altered and shaped our lives in ways we haven't even noticed -- which both Carr and Crawford argue -- and holds up seven philosophers to give us guidelines for taking back our lives. These philosophers' arguments, however, are familiar enough from other sources that their application here is fairly obvious. Gretchen Rubin's THE HAPPINESS PROJECT holds up Benjamin Franklin as an example just as Powers does, and it would be impossible to recount how many people in this technological space invoke poor Henry David Thoreau as a model of separation. (I suspect he would have brought his iPad to the pond, but that's neither here nor there.) It did make me want to read more on Seneca and the Stoics -- got any recommendations, primary or secondary?

Since (clearly) this is a subgenre of interest to me, I'm not sorry I picked up HAMLET'S BLACKBERRY, though its most interesting tidbit was contained in the title: While Elizabethan England didn't have the smartphone, Shakespeare and his contemporaries had "tables," little notebooks with pages that could be wiped off if needed so as to serve as a live to-do list or work in progress. (Just picture a slightly greasier Moleskine, it's easier.) As Powers points out, Hamlet even invokes the 'tables' in I.v. after he meets the Ghost:

My tables,--meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark:

One assumes, of course, that Hamlet doesn't actually have to write down that he's just discovered his uncle is a stone cold killer -- but he had the technology which a generation earlier would have led to him carrying a slate under one arm. Good weapon, inconvenient writing device.

Admittedly, it's possible this book found me in the wrong place. I consider my relationship with my devices to be pretty healthy right now (although writing that makes it so creepy!) and I would have been more open to this book if that weren't the case. I got my own Blackberry earlier this year, and after the initial pitfalls I have established what I think are workable boundaries around it, which I can shift as needed depending on circumstances. I even have a designated no-Blackberry hobby, to the consternation of the friend who once texted me to get me to check my e-mail faster.

I don't think my coping strategies are any smarter than anyone else's in this regard. I was lucky to be a late adopter, to see the behaviors that I didn't want to emulate before I found myself unconsciously performing them. I don't want to trade down, but my own digital cleanup strategy is focused elsewhere. Hey, maybe I should write a book about it.