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    It’s flying so fast, we’re always playing catch-up. The deeper we get into this way of life, the more I think my friend Marie’s old mantra really could serve as the go-to greeting of the digital age. How are you? Busy, very busy.
    Part of the problem is that we know from experience that busyness and depth are not mutually exclusive. We’ve all had moments when we were busy in a good way, pivoting nimbly from task to task, giving our all to the one that was in front of us at any given moment. This is how great surgeons work, performing numerous difficult procedures in a single day but serially, so that each gets full attention in its turn. Having a lot on one’s plate imposes a certain discipline. There’s truth in the old saying that that more you have to do, the more you get done.
    Unfortunately, digital busyness usually doesn’t work like surgery. Dozens of tasks jostle and compete for our attention on the screen, and both software and hardware are designed to make it easy to hop around. So easy, it’s irresistible. The cursor never rests in one place for long, and neither does the mind. We’re always clicking here, there, and everywhere. Thus, although we think of our screens as productivity tools, they actually undermine the serial focus that’s the essence of true productivity. And the faster and more intense ourconnectedness becomes, the further we move away from that ideal. Digital busyness is the enemy of depth.
    Not everyone lives this way, of course. First there are millions in the United States and many more around the world who can’t afford to buy these technologies and are shut out of their manifold benefits, except through the limited access afforded by public libraries and other institutions. This is a real problem that deserves more attention than it receives. Second are those who can afford the latest gadgets but choose instead to be lightly connected or not connected at all. But these are the exceptions that prove the rule. The trend and all the momentum are emphatically in the opposite direction. The global society to which we all belong is dramatically more connected than it was a decade ago, and becoming more so each day. This shift is affecting everyone, including those who are not fully participating in it.
    This is not a small matter. It’s a struggle that’s taking place at the center of our lives. It’s a struggle for the center of our lives, for control of how we think and feel. When you’re scrambling all the time, that’s what your inner life becomes: scrambled. Why are we doing this to ourselves? Do we really want a world in which everyone is staring at screens all the time, keeping one another busy? Is there a better way?
    To answer tough questions like these, we’re trained to look outward, to studies and surveys that academics, pollsters, think tanks, government agencies, and others conduct on every imaginable aspect of our lives. In fact, there’s a great deal of ongoing research about connective technologies and how they’re affecting individuals, families, businesses, and society at large. New findings are released all the time and reported widely in the news media, where technology is a perennially hot topic: “Americans Spend Eight Hours a Day on Screens” “Study: U.S. Loaded with Internet Addicts” “Texting andDriving Worse than Drinking and Driving.” We read these headlines and shake our heads, not because they’re telling us something we don’t know but because we know it all too well. The reality of our connected lives is all around