Changes in the technology of communication are occurring so rapidly that we human beings now move through a cloud ofmessages as densely as a locust-storm. Every new device increases 1the speed and the outreach of the last, and young people are now governed by the gadgets in their hands, which don't merely contain their lives and also to a great extent dictate them. 2 Of course, the print media still exist. There are old-fashioned people like myself who make a living by writing things, and old-fashioned people like you, who support us by reading, or atany rate buy, what we write. But maybe it's only people like us 3who are able really to regret for the changes that are sweeping 4away so much that we depended upon. The rest of the world iscaught up in the torrent of gadgets, each new model is designed to 5relieve its owner of one more source of spiritual exercise or one 6more obstacle to fun. Memory now exists behind a screen. Veryfew is stored in our heads, and our recollections drift in cyberspace 7like asteroids, unconnected to the orbit in which we move. Written letters are a thing of past, and essays are downloaded 8from the sites devoted to them. Research means surfing the web, and as for social life—this is a matter of tweeting and twittering as one drifts through cyberspace. Facebook friendships bubble up in amoment, and consist of a mutual agreement between strangers to 9put themselves on display. More and more does it seem thatputting yourself on display is what it is all about, which there is 10nothing more to love and friendship than being mutually visible.