Digital Delights - Digital Tribes

A few years ago, Kord Campbell missed the email of his life -- for 12 days.  How did this happen?  Through an electronic flood of email, IM, chats and web browers, it simply slipped through the cracks.

Campbell managed to save his million dollar deal, "yet continues to struggle with the effects of the deluge of data. Even after he unplugs, he craves the stimulation he gets from his electronic gadgets. He forgets things like dinner plans, and he has trouble focusing on his family."

This is our brain in the Digital Age.

Generally, our ability to focus is being undermined by never-ending bits of information coming at us 24/7.  Information overload, multitasking, interruptions and constant distraction hampers work and family life.

"Nonstop interactivity is  one of the most significant shifts ever in the human environment."  The bottom line?  Technology is rewiring our brains, exposing us "to an environment that asks our brains to do things we weren’t necessarily evolved to do.  We know already there are consequences.”

We are at a moment of dramatic change. 

The greatest threat?  "Heavy technology use diminishes empathy by limiting how much people engage with one another -- even in the same room.  That empathy is essential to the human condition."

In an age that supposedly keeps us more connected, we are in fact becoming more fragmented. The human condition -- the unique features of being human -- is becoming more fragile.

HOW DO WE CHOOSE TO EVOLVE?