What’s This Doing To My Brain?
A FRIEND OF THE WRITER Kim Stolz once jumped onto subway tracks to retrieve a dropped iPhone. Telling the story in Unfriending My Ex and Other Things I’ll Never Do, Stolz reports being horrified by the risk—yet adds, “If this same friend dropped her iPhone onto the subway tracks tomorrow, she wouldn’t hesitate to attempt this feat again. And neither would I.”
Welcome to the Digital Age, when a phone is worth a leap onto the tracks, and people are reluctant to put down their devices even while driving. Our words, photos, money, and medical records live online. People walk with heads bowed, eyes riveted to the gadgets cradled in their hands.
But we’re only beginning to grapple with the changes that digital technology brings. Beneath its lure, I sense unease. And why shouldn’t we be nervous—especially those of us in Generation X, the last generation that grew up without the internet, raised on the dystopian visions of 1984’s surveillance network and 2001: A Space Odyssey’s rebellious computer?
Several recent books explore this unease, questioning what our devices and networks might be doing to us. In , Adam Alter examines our compulsive relationship with technology, especially with games and apps. He discusses research on factors
