Lem

[AMandelker at AOL.COM]

Tolstoy refused to read the newspapers.... partly to avoid encountering
negative criticism of his work, but I believe he considered it ultimately a
beneficial break from unnecessary media overload;  remember the description
of Stiva Oblonsky in AK reading the papers, not for the information, but
because, like an after dinner drink or a cigar, they created a pleasant fog
in the brain.

There is a certain anesthetic effect from passive consumption, regardless of
media form.  An American science fiction writer came up with a scenario
involving direct electronic stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain.
The result:  a society of people who lived to "plug in."

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