As companies keep reducing the friction in our lives, are we happy trading convenience for human connection?

Mississippi John Hurt

Two authors pursue silence in nets of words.

Paramore

When searching for an apartment in New York, people typically have a few key features they're looking for. In Caroline Shadood’s case, her apartment in Glendale, Queens really has the “quiet neighbors” part nailed. By David Colon.

The Ladies of Llangollen fell in love, ran away together, and lived a scholarly life of “delicious seclusion” — secluded, that is, except for all the visitors. By Patricia Hampl.

Astronomers build on the Drake Equation to probe the chance that humans will find existing aliens. The answer: Not likely. By Lisa Grossman.

At fifty-five, Henry Worsley began a solitary trek that became a singular test of character. By David Grann.

There are, broadly, two kinds of structural lonelinesses. One is the benign loneliness of the socially alienated, the other the malignant melancholy of the erstwhile master. By Amba Azaad.

Hayley Campbell quit her job and moved into an empty flat. Here she explains the tough but peculiar pleasures of seclusion.

The stories have become all too familiar in Japan, though people often do their best to ignore them. An elderly or middle-aged person, usually a man, is found dead, at home in his apartment, frequently right in his bed. It has been days, weeks, or even months... By Amos Zeeberg.

Seventy-eight-year-old Mauro Morandi often walks along the rocky shores of Budelli Island and looks out over the disconsolate sea, feeling dwarfed by the phantom forces that tug and twist the tides. “We think we are giants that can dominate the Earth, but we’re just mosquitos,” Morandi says. In 1989 on a stretch of water between Sardinia and Corsica, with a crippled engine and anchor adrift, Morandi’s catamaran was gripped by these same inexorable forces and carried to the shores of Budelli Island.

Using the most powerful telescope ever sent to Mars, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter caught a view of the Curiosity rover this month amid rocky mountainside terrain.

A fake social network might be the only thing your smartphone needs. By Ian Bogost.

The military’s plan to send newer, more disruptive jet planes over the Hoh and Quinault rain forest region has unraveled not only townspeople throughout the Olympic Peninsula, but the veterans who thought they’d found a refuge. By Madeline Ostrander.

The author, feeling hemmed in by the city, buys a secluded wilderness retreat. But are there any truly wild places left to escape to? And what exactly are we seeking when we head into the woods? By Kenneth R. Rosen.

Metronomy

If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts. By William Deresiewicz.

Ten years as a lookout on a fire tower requires a particular aptitude for idleness. By Philip Connors.

Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three