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'Sorry Please Thank You': Technically, We're All Alone

By: NPR Staff // July 29, 2012
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Smartphones and tablets just need a flick of a finger to keep us updated about news and friends anytime, anywhere. As much as we're connected, though, we're also detached. That's a big theme in a new book of short stories by author Charles Yu.

Yu's stories are sad ones. They're techy, too. One story, "Standard Loneliness Package," is entirely about humans using technology as a way to buy detachment from the ordinary emotions of human experience — grief, heartbreak, awkwardness.

For all its advantages, Yu tells Weekend Edition Sunday guest host David Greene, technology has the power to make us lonely.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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