Soon enough, nobody will remember life before the Internet. What does this unavoidable fact mean? Those of us who have lived both with and without the crowded connectivity of online life have a rare opportunity. We can still recognize the difference between Before and After. We catch ourselves idly reaching for our phones at the bus stop. Or we notice how, midconversation, a fumbling friend dives into the perfect recall of Google. In this eloquent and thought-provoking book, Michael Harris argues that amid all the changes we're experiencing, the most interesting is the end of absence-the loss of lack. The daydreaming silences in our lives are filled; the burning solitudes are extinguished. There's no true "free time" when you carry a smartphone. Today's rarest commodity is the chance to be alone with your thoughts. Michael Harris is an award-winning journalist and a contributing editor at Western Living and Vancouvermagazines. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

還記得沒有網路之前的日子嗎？
當我們連生命中曾經屬於自己的空白時光都自願交給網路科技時，
你是否曾仔細想過：
我們究竟放棄了什麼，來交換現在這一切？
而我們還留下了什麼，給我們自己？
從沒有網路，到現在隨時能夠上網的時代，只不過區區數十年。現在只要上谷哥搜尋，就會跑出我們想要的各種資訊；只要點一下臉書或是LINE，就可以隨時看見我們親朋好友的新鮮事。但與此同時，那些對我們很重要的事物和經驗、一種人與人或人與物事的連接，實際上已從我們的生活中慢慢溜走了，無法再恢復。
現在的我們，或許還依稀記得網路出現之前的生活。我們會為了傳達思念寫出一封封動人的信、會為了課堂上不明白的事物學會去探究思考原因，甚至只是為了無所事事，而讓自己獨處，翱翔在自己的天馬行空之中。
但現在，你還曾經如此做過嗎？
作者麥克‧哈里斯將80年代前後作為分水嶺。在80年代前出生的人，開始接觸網路時已是成年人，他們曾經驗網路出現前的生活模式，屬於「跨立的世代」（Straddle generation），因此能感受當中的差異，但是80年代或之後出生的人，他們將完全失去那些寶貴的經驗。麥克提出了一個至關重要的問題：我們應該留給後世什麼呢？答案是「抽離」（absence），從網路科技、從自身之外的事物「抽離」。當網上生活佔據你生活的全部經驗時，有些連接（經驗）開始一點一滴地流走，你失去了它，就難以恢復它的價值。
現在的我們就猶如過去的古騰堡時代，當時古騰堡的印刷讓宗教學家認為：「信心會減弱，法會滅亡，而聖經將湮沒無聞。」如今的網路就猶如古騰堡的印刷，大大的衝擊並改變我們的行為，甚至是思考。
如今全球網路使用量較過去十年擴大了近五倍，根據Youtube的統計數字，每分鐘用戶上傳的視訊長度高達一百小時，亦即我們每天都在過著十年般的時光。而美國的調查顯示，平均18至64歲的人，每天花三點二小時在社交網站上。
在這新古騰堡時代，麥克認為網路讓我們持續保持「連線」，卻擾亂了「思考」的本身，我們的數位設備無時無刻都在嗡嗡作響，它打斷了我們「想像」的機會，甚至是可能的新見解與發現。我們渴望上傳美食的照片到instagram上更甚於吃下美食；我們在網路上創造虛偽的自我化身來掩蓋真實的自己；我們透過數位螢幕上由點陣圖像排列而成的「我愛你」來表達自己的感情；最後，我們任由它取代我們的一切。
在這個能令我們著迷的資訊年代、什麼都能隨手可得的年代裡，我們很少思考人類究竟放棄了什麼，換來現在的一切。作者試圖重現這些在地球已經消失和缺少的特別連接，從生活的各個層面，如性愛、記憶、距離等，逐一探索，提醒我們，那沒有網路科技、只有自己的抽離時刻是人類不可缺少的部份，是值得我們保護的，也是人類獲得持久滿足感的根源。

What do pure mathematicians do, and why do they do it? Looking beyond the conventional answers—for the sake of truth, beauty, and practical applications—this book offers an eclectic panorama of the lives and values and hopes and fears of mathematicians in the twenty-first century, assembling material from a startlingly diverse assortment of scholarly, journalistic, and pop culture sources.
Drawing on his personal experiences and obsessions as well as the thoughts and opinions of mathematicians from Archimedes and Omar Khayyám to such contemporary giants as Alexander Grothendieck and Robert Langlands, Michael Harris reveals the charisma and romance of mathematics as well as its darker side. In this portrait of mathematics as a community united around a set of common intellectual, ethical, and existential challenges, he touches on a wide variety of questions, such as: Are mathematicians to blame for the 2008 financial crisis? How can we talk about the ideas we were born too soon to understand? And how should you react if you are asked to explain number theory at a dinner party?
Disarmingly candid, relentlessly intelligent, and richly entertaining, Mathematics without Apologies takes readers on an unapologetic guided tour of the mathematical life, from the philosophy and sociology of mathematics to its reflections in film and popular music, with detours through the mathematical and mystical traditions of Russia, India, medieval Islam, the Bronx, and beyond.

What do pure mathematicians do, and why do they do it? Looking beyond the conventional answers--for the sake of truth, beauty, and practical applications--this book offers an eclectic panorama of the lives and values and hopes and fears of mathematicians in the twenty-first century, assembling material from a startlingly diverse assortment of scholarly, journalistic, and pop culture sources.
Drawing on his personal experiences and obsessions as well as the thoughts and opinions of mathematicians from Archimedes and Omar Khayy�m to such contemporary giants as Alexander Grothendieck and Robert Langlands, Michael Harris reveals the charisma and romance of mathematics as well as its darker side. In this portrait of mathematics as a community united around a set of common intellectual, ethical, and existential challenges, he touches on a wide variety of questions, such as: Are mathematicians to blame for the 2008 financial crisis? How can we talk about the ideas we were born too soon to understand? And how should you react if you are asked to explain number theory at a dinner party?
Disarmingly candid, relentlessly intelligent, and richly entertaining,
takes readers on an unapologetic guided tour of the mathematical life, from the philosophy and sociology of mathematics to its reflections in film and popular music, with detours through the mathematical and mystical traditions of Russia, India, medieval Islam, the Bronx, and beyond.

With a foreword by Nicholas Carr, author of the Pulitzer Prize–finalist The Shallows.

Today, society embraces sharing like never before. Fueled by our dependence on mobile devices and social media, we have created an ecosystem of obsessive connection. Many of us now lead lives of strangely crowded isolation: we are always linked, but only shallowly so.

The capacity to be alone, properly alone, is one of life’s subtlest skills. Real solitude is a powerful resource we can call upon—a crucial ingredient for a rich interior life. It inspires reflection, allows creativity to flourish, and improves our relationships with ourselves and, unexpectedly, with others. Idle hands can, in fact, produce the extraordinary. In living bigger and faster, we have forgotten the joys of silence, and undervalued how profoundly it can revolutionize our lives.

This book is about discovering stillness inside the city, inside the crowd, inside our busy lives. With wit and energy, award-winning author Michael Harris weaves captivating true stories with reporting from the world’s foremost brain researchers, psychologists, and tech entrepreneurs to guide us toward a state of measured connectivity that balances quiet and companionship.

Solitude is a beautiful and convincing statement on the transformative power of being alone.

Today, society embraces sharing like never before. Fueled by our dependence on mobile devices and social media, we have created an ecosystem of obsessive connection. Many of us now lead lives of strangely crowded isolation: we are always linked, but only shallowly so.
The capacity to be alone, properly alone, is one of life’s subtlest skills. Real solitude is a powerful resource we can call upon—a crucial ingredient for a rich interior life. It inspires reflection, allows creativity to flourish, and improves our relationships with ourselves and, unexpectedly, with others. Idle hands can, in fact, produce the extraordinary. In living bigger and faster, we have forgotten the joys of silence, and undervalued how profoundly it can revolutionize our lives.
This book is about discovering stillness inside the city, inside the crowd, inside our busy lives. With wit and energy, award-winning author Michael Harris weaves captivating true stories with reporting from the world’s foremost brain researchers, psychologists, and tech entrepreneurs to guide us toward a state of measured connectivity that balances quiet and companionship.
is a beautiful and convincing statement on the transformative power of being alone.