Digital Minimalism

“Conversation enriches the understanding”
: Anthony Storr,
Solitude: A Return to the Self (1988; reprint, New York: Free Press, 2005),
ix.
“the majority of poets”
: Storr, Solitude, ix.
“it matters enormously”
: Michael Harris, Solitude: In Pursuit of a
Singular Life in a Crowded World (New York: Thomas Dunne Books,
2017), 40.
“new ideas; an understanding”
: Harris, Solitude, 40.
“the ability to be alone”
: Harris, Solitude, 39.
“I am here alone”
: May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude (New York: W. W.
Norton, 1992), 11. I first encountered this quote (with accompanying
commentary) in Maria Popova, “May Sarton on the Cure for Despair and
Solitude as the Seedbed for Self-Discovery,” Brain Pickings (blog), October
17, 2016, 
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/10/17/may-sarton-journal-
of-a-solitude-depression
.
“We enter solitude”
: From the essay “Healing,” Wendell Berry, What Are
People For?: Essays, 2nd ed., (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2010), 11.
“contemporary Western culture”
: Storr, Solitude, 70.
“we are in great haste”
: Thoreau, Walden, 34.
Alter decided to measure his own smartphone use
: Alter,
Irresistible, 13–14.
“There are millions of smartphone users”
: Alter, Irresistible, 14.
“Facebook . . . was built”
: “Facebook’s Letter from Mark Zuckerberg—
Full Text,” The Guardian,
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/feb/01/facebook-letter-
mark-zuckerberg-text
The term 
constant
 is not hyperbole
: “Tweens, Teens, and Screens: What
Our New Research Uncovers,” Common Sense Media, November 2, 2015,
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/tweens-teens-and-screens-
what-our-new-research-uncovers
.