The shallows: what the Internet is doing to our brains

Written on 13 August 2016. Socrates started what may have been the first technology scare. In the "Phaedrus," he lamented the invention of books, which "create forgetfulness" in the soul. Instead of remembering for themselves, Socrates warned, new readers were blindly trusting in "external written characters." The library was ruining the mind. Needless to say, the printing press only made things worse.