ABSTRACT
The pandemic of 2020 has already changed methods of communication. Unable to meet in person, we have started to use electronic media to deliver teaching and to take part in conferences. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this is less satisfactory and more tiring for participants, and anecdotal evidence also suggests that many are experiencing changes in their concentration and their awareness of the passage of time. This essay will explore these issues further, reflecting on the epistemological consequences of this major global socio-cultural event. In the discussion, reference is made to works both written during confinement, which include the prison notebooks of the Italian C19th revolutionary, Silvio Pellico and Xavier de Maistre's mock travelogue A Journey around My Room (1794).
