According to recent media surveys, the average American spends some 8.5 hours a day peering at a screen — TV, computer, or cell phone — and that number continues to rise as smartphone use explodes. We’ve reached a point, in other words, where it’s more likely than not that we’re looking into a screen at any given moment when we’re awake.… What happens to the human self as it comes to experience more and more of the world, and of life, through the mediation of the screen?
— Nicholas Carr, “Not addiction; dependency”