The average American is a ravenous media junkie, consuming up to nine hours a day of television, web time or cellphone minutes, according to new research which raises fresh questions about how technology is revolutionising society.

From iPods filling commuters’ ears, the screens scrolling headlines in the elevator at work to proliferating on-the-move tools like cellphones and Blackberry handhelds, media is everywhere in the United States, like much of the rest of the developed world. —Media, media everywhere, and no time left to think? (Breitbart | AFP)

We’re reading selections from Thoreau’s Walden in my American Literature class. Thoreau’s desire to shed his ties to material possessions and live simply in the woods appealed to several of the students in my morning class.