Glowing Rectangles

I heard recently that researchers at Stanford have discovered that we spend a horrifying percentage of each day staring at glowing rectangles. I tried to find more information on this and the only thing I could find is a piece in The Onion, so I don't know what to make of the report.

But it got me thinking. I was most taken by the term "glowing rectangles." I understand why it's used -- to capture the whole gamut from phones to iPads to television to computer screens. It evokes the idea of mind-numbing, non-personal, time-sucking ways of making our days flow by without realizing it.

After a while, when I tried to think of yet another sample of a glowing rectangle, I could only conjure up medieval illuminated manuscripts and other pieces of art. If I believed in past lives, I could easily convince myself that I once spent a lifetime toiling away creating nothing but the margins of books. When you think of the rarity, the mystique, the magic of books in those times, let alone the special beauty of an illuminated manuscript, it makes me wonder what the equivalent is today. It's hard to come up with the same power and the same promise. Now 15 years into the ubiquity of the internet it's silly to nominate it for that title. Any other ideas?