“What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.

New thought came more readily to a brain that had already learned how to rearrange itself to read.

By allowing us to filter out distractions, to quiet the problem-solving functions of the frontal lobes, deep reading becomes a form of deep thinking.

People who read linear text comprehend more, remember more and learn more than those who read text peppered with links.

Frequent interruptions scatter our thoughts, weaken our memory and make us tense and anxious.

Improving our ability to multitask actually hampers our ability to think deeply and creatively.

What we are doing when we multitask is learning to be skillful at a superficial level. The Roman philosopher Seneca may have put it best two thousand years ago: "To be everywhere is to be nowhere."

After spending time in a quiet rural setting, close to nature, people exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory and generally improved cognition.”