Are We Too Plugged In? Distracted vs. Enhanced Minds | Singularity Hub

Are We Too Plugged In? Distracted vs. Enhanced Minds | Singularity Hub: "My smart phone can let me access the collective knowledge of humanity from almost anywhere, but is that access making me smarter or simply less focused? Every day I see people texting while in line at a store, using their laptops in parks, or chatting on the phone to loved ones while they walk. No matter where we go, we seem to stay plugged in. And while plugged in, we consume. According to the New York Times, Americans took in three times as much data in 2008 as they did in 1960. We multitask, trying to absorb different media streams (Twitter, email, Facebook, etc) at once, and new evidence shows that multitasking isn’t simply making us more efficient, it’s also making us more stressed, and less discerning. It seems possible our brains may have a practical restriction to how much data they can and should process. Is the growing digital age doomed to fail due to our own mental limits? No, but we need to acknowledge the necessity and benefits of unplugging."