The Internet, like all intellectual technologies has a trade off. As we train our brains to use it, as we adapt to the environment of the internet, which is an environment of kind of constant immersion and information and constant distractions, interruptions, juggling lots of messages, lots of bits of information.

I think, that after the arrival of the mechanical clock we see an explosion in scientific thinking and scientific discovery.

Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

The only thing going on is the progression of words and sentences across page after page and so suddenly we see this immersive kind of very attentive thinking, whether you are paying attention to a story or to an argument, or whatever. And what we know about the brain is the brain adapts to these types of tools.

I think if you look back through the intellectual history of human beings you can trace the way that intellectual technologies influence the way we think.

As soon as you introduce the mechanical clock, you get a radically different view of time. Suddenly, it's not a flow; it's a series of discreet, precisely measurable units, seconds, minutes, hours, and so forth.

We become, after the arrival of the printing press in general, more attentive more attuned to contemplative ways of thinking.