I'm a new summer Odie and this is WNYC's Note to Self.

I think I treat my phone as sort of this like friend, like a best friend.

The AirNed Byron Large drains me.

The show where you and I search for balance in the digital age.

We've had moral panics about new technologies for centuries.

Yeah, your brain's going to feel different.

And figure out how to manage modern life.

This week, how reading on a screen is different than reading on paper.

And what that means for your brain.

A big update to one of our most popular episodes.

We're revisiting this issue because of an email from listener Katherine Cronin.

She wrote in complaining about how she can't sit and read for more than 15 minutes at a

time without feeling the urge to jump up and look at her phone.

And actually, dozens of you have written in with similar frustrations.

Not being able to get through a novel or even just a long New Yorker article.

That's also what was happening to Mike Rosenwald.

One night I was reading the new Lori Moore short story collection and I found myself sort

of jumping and skipping around much like I do when I'm scrolling through my Twitter

feed or Facebook feed.

He couldn't focus.

The words weren't coming fast enough.

Mike found himself skimming something that he really wanted to read.

...