Michael Harris, an award-winning journalist and a contributing editor to Western Living and Vancouver magazines, has friends who are immensely frustrated by spending half a day scrolling through their email and Twitter notes. Some believe this activity leads to "techno-brain burnout." Others, like writer Linda Stone, characterizes this dazed state of mind as "partial attention."

Harris reminds us that we are all digital natives now; the world's atmosphere heaves with signals from more than six billion cellphones. According to research by Nielson, the average teenager now manages upward of 4,000 text messages every month. According to experts, youth consume about 10 hours and 45 minutes of media each day.

The author has some very interesting things to say about Yelp where you can find 47 million reviews of local businesses around the world (mostly restaurants and shops); the Google-ization of knowledge; the de-valuing of expert opinion and the hyper-valuing of amateur public opinion; the growth of MOOCs (massive open online courses); and thoughts about the "Straddle Generation" (those born in the 1980s who are the last people to remember life without the Internet).

One of the most fascinating chapters in the book is about memory. Here Harris muses on the art of recall in ancient cultures, the role of the brain in this process of memory and forgetting, Charlie Kaufman's film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and memory as a morphing experience and an inventive act.

In the final section of the book, Harris escapes his digital life and during an "analog August" spends an entire month without his cellphone, e-mail, or Internet. He discovers how immersed he is in the tech world. At times, he feels bored, restless, and uncomfortable even though there is plenty of time for walks, reading, and reveries. Harris has a special place in his heart for absence and solitude. He's convinced that these special qualities have been lost in a world of constant connection and it is time for us to reclaim them.