Yes, we're smart monkeys...

...but this much information can't be good for our monkey brains.

I have no doubt that the rise in the incidence of mental illness and learning disability will be shown one day to be a product of the truly staggering increase in the amount of information we're called on to process everyday. Our brains just can't cope with it. A brain that evolved to hunt small mammals and run from big mammals can do lots of other, ancillary stuff, but there comes a limit.

And walking around with an ear-mounted telephone so that you have someone yammering at you the entire time you're conscious can't possibly be positive. And the absolute necessity of iPods or similar devices so kids can listen to a constant stream of music? And the difference in the way movies and television is recorded, filled as it is with frenetic jump cuts, doesn't give the brain as much chance to parse what it just saw.

Why, in my day...

You kids get out of my yard!!