A video of a man lamenting about the decrease in our attention spans and mental effort cut down to 4 minutes so it takes less effort to digest.

The part about the "dread of quiet" is really true and more relevant than ever.

He was absolutely right about the lack of quiet, purposeful reading among many people in the U.S.

I was a live sound engineer professionally in my 20s and it would always bug me that people always wanted to put on recorded music between the live bands' sets - Sometimes after a particularly good set by a band I would "forget" to do this so people could dwell on what they just heard for a while and someone from whatever venue I was mixing would always run up to me within a couple of minutes without fail and insist I put the recorded music on as if I was simply incompetent and not doing my job.

"We don't want things to be quiet anymore", Aldous Huxley did a marvelous essay just about that.

2020 where my algorithm-riders at

Some times I just want to make him breakfast and help him put on his bandana

It scares me how much I agree with some of the things Wallace says, because it makes me feel so alone in a world where so many of the close friends/family I have would just consider thoughts like these to be overthinking and move on, while dilemmas like these bother me and linger in my mind for much longer. I just feel lonely for someone who can level with me sometimes, instead of just trying to get me to move on and stop thinking about a certain thing. I don’t know. I just feel real lonely sometimes, I guess.

Imagine if David had lived until today. He would probably have some very interesting thoughts on the phenomena of twitter, instagram, facebook, and vine. So it goes.

"When people stop talking, their brains start to work." -- Douglas Adams

I really like one thing from this interview: you can see how his brain

Thank you so much for uploading these DFW interviews. These are so precious.

Being alone and it being quiet is the reason I love reading.

What an incredible piece to think about and comment on. I am going to have to save this and write about it. I guess this is what literary and social criticism is about. RIP Mr. Foster.

I love this and I love at the end he says "I dont know"

Boy, what he says back then (when was this--almost 20 years ago?) rings SO true today as people become more addicted to their cellphones and can't go 30 seconds without amusing/entertaining themselves. Sitting down and focussing on a challenging novel today. As they say in New York, for 99 percent of the people, fuggedaboutit. I wish I had had the pleasure of knowing this man.

Wow, he has such an pleasant voice, I could listen for hours.

wow, so insightful and spot-on. And the humble, depressingly-tinged "I dunno" at the end really sums it up best. Patience, thoughtfulness, the commitment to time--they're all being bullied and subverted in modern culture. It's so sad

I perfect example of fears of being along is solitary confinement... act up and we'll make you be with yourself. That's why it's so important to be with yourself as much as possible.

I was tempted to close my Internet window because this video was taking "too long" too load. I'm glad I stayed to watch the whole thing.