This chapter reflects on the role that digital devices have come to play in reinforcing and amplifying our culture’s presumption that the good life is a relentlessly “productive” life—one that involves always pressing onward to the next meeting, to the next email, the next coffee conversation, the next carpool ride, the next meal cooked. It examines our culture of productivity and the ways that our digital ecology both normalize this existential mode of hurrying and cultivate a heart of restless distraction—one that is driving us to risk missing out on the life for which we actually long.
