In defense of sexting

What is contemplative computing?

Contemplative computing may sound like an oxymoron, but it's really quite simple. It's about how to use information technologies and social media so they're not endlessly distracting and demanding, but instead help us be more mindful, focused and creative.

My book on contemplative computing, The Distraction Addiction, will be published by Little, Brown and Co. in August 2013. In the meantime, this 2011 talk is a good introduction to the project and its big ideas.

Writer Sarah Nicole Prickett on "Speaking in Tongues:"

It is funny how many of the traditional newspaper writers who castigate “my” generation’s sexting as somehow stemming “real” flesh-and-blood desire are of a type with those who consume and exalt the penned exchanges of Henry Miller and Anais Nin, or of James Joyce and Nora. It is strange they don’t see the smooth continuity. In some ways the speed and ease and volume of texts have devalued the content, but in others texting and IMing and g-chatting are improvisational evolutions of letter-writing, making it automatic and collaborative, not single-handed and static. Making it, in one word, hotter.

About Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

I write about people, technology, and the worlds they make.

I'm a senior consultant at Strategic Business Insights, a Menlo Park, CA consulting and research firm. I also have two academic appointments: I'm a visitor at the Peace Innovation Lab at Stanford University, and an Associate Fellow at Oxford University's Saïd Business School.

I began thinking seriously about contemplative computing in the winter of 2011 while a Visiting Researcher in the Socio-Digital Systems Group at Microsoft Research, Cambridge.
My book on contemplative computing, The Distraction Addiction, will be published by Little, Brown and Company in 2013. (It will also appear in Dutch, Russian, Spanish, Chinese and Korean in 2013 and 2014.)

My episodically-maintained personal blog is Relevant History; a c.v. of uncertain vintage is available as a PDF. I also have profiles on Linked In, Google Scholar, Academia.edu, and Amazon.

My books

My latest book, and the first book from the contemplative computing project. The Distraction Addiction will appear in summer 2013, published by Little, Brown and Co.. (You can pre-order it through Amazon or IndieBound now, though!)

My first book, Empire and the Sun: Victorian Solar Eclipse Expeditions, was published with Stanford University Press in 2002 (order via Amazon).

My Amazon author page.

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What is contemplative computing?

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