We are not as strong as technology's pull.

There's a lot of research that indicates the brain rewards us for multi-tasking by giving us a shot of neurochemicals whenever we start a new task. Our brain rewards us even as our performance in every task degrades. We don't even notice that our performance is bad. We don't care. We feel like masters of the universe because our brain is chemically rewarding us for multi-tasking.

My own study of the networked life has left me thinking about intimacy - about being with people in person, hearing their voices and seeing their faces, trying to know their hearts. And it has left me thinking about solitude - the kind that refreshes and restores. Loneliness is failed solitude.

If we don't teach kids how to be alone, they will end up only lonely.

When you're addicted to heroin, there is only one thing you can do - go off heroin. But we're not going to throw away these phones, we're not going to throw away our technology.

We're lonely, but we're afraid of intimacy. And so from social networks to sociable robots, we're designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.

One thing is certain: the riddle of mind, long a topic for philosophers, has taken on new urgency. Under pressure from the computer, the question of mind in relation to machine is becoming a central cultural preoccupation. It is becoming for us what sex was to the Victorians--threat and obsession, taboo and fascination.