The internet is about differentiation

Here’s an interesting excerpt from William Powers’s Hamlet’s Blackberry:

The more connected we are, the more we depend on the world outside ourselves to tell us how to think and live... We don’t turn inward as often or as easily as we used to. In one sense, the digital sphere is all about differentiating oneself from others.

Although merely a couple of chapters in, I'm eager to recommend this book as compulsory reading to everyone who uses the internet, which is just about everyone I know.