"Twitter, Facebook and cell phones didn't create this desire or problem. I've known people all my life who turned the television on as soon as they woke up in the morning and left it on until they went to bed at night, just to insure there was never complete silence in the house. All that the new connectivity, on-line virtual game options, and instant messaging do is make it easier to avoid the awful specter of silent, alone time. And yet ... just try to imagine Henry David Thoreau writing his masterpiece about Walden Pond while twittering, texting, and watching CNN. ... And yet ... there's a unique kind of strength that comes from simply sitting in companionship with yourself and listening for what your heart or the world might tell you. Or allowing thoughts or events to percolate slowly against counter-thoughts, opinions, or trends. My best ideas don't occur to me when I'm feverishly involved in churning out words. They come when I give my mind permission to listen instead of talk. To just be for a while. Undistracted. Undisturbed. And sometimes not even consciously focused on the problem at hand. " - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

Sometimes a person can be so lonely and sad, and silence only magnifies the thing that's so hard to face - you are alone. Turning on the TV is a temporary respite from this burden and safer than alcohol or sleeping pills. - Daisy

I push one high-frequency poster from my home feed into the void, and up bubbles this wonderful little piece which for 11 hours lived somewhere in limbo beyond the margin of the page. Wonders! That said, remember where you've read it first: "in the future the most luxurious commodity will be the silence." Silence as in "silent as a dead brick," not "silent in general." You've read it »HERE«. - ianf ⌘

I swam the length of Walden Pond yesterday in silence, and, yes, it was a much more satisfying experience than participating in social media, and one more conducive to creative thinking. - Sean McBride

Hm, I do have Walden here at my computer as audiobook. Maybe I should change FF some time for the 'silence' of Thoreau... - Ton Zijp

I ran off to the wilderness with a satchel of books. It worked for two months and then I longed for the spontaneous collaboration that FF is trying to optimize. Will a mobile device/cloud network revolution now allow me to leave Silicon Valley and head back to the woods? Not permanently, life is about balance. - Lane Rapp

Being alone is overrated. I like to watch TV with the sound off to give my eyes something to look at while I'm thinking. - Gabe