We all know the feeling of surrendering to the embedded biases of our devices. We let our cell phones ping us every time there's an incoming message and check our e-mail even when we'd best pay attention to what's going on around us in the real world. We text while driving.

When I was going to school in, like, '84 to '88, you didn't have cell phones. There was no e-mail, if you can wrap your brain around that.

I think we have the attention span of a gnat. You know, with cell phones and Twitter.

I'll date you, love...not you and your iPad. I can't feel plastic palm play; I'm live like Memorex.

People earnestly say to me here, 'Mr Knight, we have cellphones now, and you're going to really enjoy them.' That's their enticement for me to rejoin society. 'You're going to love it,' they say. I have no desire. And what about a text message? Isn't that just using a telephone as a telegraph? We're going backwards.

Where today people surf the Web and check their e-mail on their cell phones, tomorrow they will be checking their vital signs.