Maybe the smart phone's hegemony makes perfect evolutionary sense: Humans are tapping a deep urge to seek out information. Our ancient food-foraging survival instinct has evolved into an info-foraging obsession; one that prompts many of us today to constantly check our phones and multitask. A new book The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High Tech World explores the implications of, and brain science behind, this evolution (some might say devolution). It was written Adam Gazzaley, a neurologist and a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and research psychologist Larry D. Rosen. Our friends at NPR's Shots blog recently spoke with one of the authors about distraction's impact on productivity.

I even take my phone with me when I head to the restroom, to fire off a few texts. Or I'll scroll through my email when I leave the office for lunch. My eyes are often glued to my phone from the moment I wake up, but I often reach the end of my days wondering what I've accomplished. My productivity mystery was solved after reading The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High Tech World, by Dr. Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, and Larry Rosen, a research psychologist and professor emeritus at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Their book explains why the brain can't multitask, and why my near-obsessive efforts to keep up with email is likely lowering my productive output.