Scary thought ... I've been an Amazon "CUSTOMER SINCE 2000" according to the account page, owned numerous Kindles, bought all sorts of items, watched television shows and movies, bought gifts, etc., from them very regularly for 17 years ... Amazon knows more about me (in some ways) than any friend or family member.
Just finished the book. I agree that it is a very important work. I will go right back to it again, and re-read it. The book is essentially 3 very well-melded parts: current conditions examined from a broad perspective, a psychological/socio-cultural interpretation of events, and hopeful (probably too hopeful) prescriptions to resolve things in a non-horrific fashion. The comparison of individual “tiredness” (ennui) with national tiredness is intriguing.
I guess a “flip” phone is the closest thing to a “phone” as we can still get. I haven’t had a traditional land-line telephone/tape answering machine since the 1990’s. For 20+ years, a (version of) “flip” phone has been THE phone. The distinction from the current “smart” phone is, I haven’t let the phone morph into an incessant intrusion into every fabric of my mental processes. It’s still just a thing I (mostly) talk on ...