Technology allows us no time to mourn or process experience.

The effect of the great technological upheaval on politics, as social media mobilises protest in Brazil and Turkey, and on privacy has been well-documented, in the revelations about state surveillance.

But the change manifests itself in other, less obvious ways, too. as Jonath Friedland points out, the global response to the death of the actor James Gandolfini prompted the political scientist Ian Bremmen to remark that "Twitter reduces the famous-person-mourning cycle from days to hours," a comment he made via Twitter of course. The speed with which an event becomes old news has deprived us of the time to process experiences, both public and private.