This is Build for Tomorrow, a podcast about the things from our past that shaped us and what it takes for us to shape the future.

I'm Jason Pfeiffer. It was the worst of times. It was the worst of times. So let me tell you about them both.

The year was 2008 and our brains were becoming a fog. We could barely focus anymore, not like we did in the good old days anyway, but we pulled it

together long enough to pick up a copy of the Atlantic magazine where our problems were

finally diagnosed.

Google is making us stupid.

That's what the cover said, and inside the writer tells us that, quote, what the net seems

to be doing is chipping

away at my capacity for concentration and contemplation, end quote. If only it seemed, we could go back,

back to another time, back before all this, back to, the year was 1923, and our brains were

becoming a fog. We could barely focus anymore, not like we did in the

good old days anyway, but we pulled it together long enough to pick up a copy of the New York Times,

where our problems were finally diagnosed. American life is too fast. That's what the headline says,

and it quotes from the Secretary of State, who explains, quote, "'It is the day of the fleeting vision.

Concentration, thoroughness, the quiet reflection that ripens the judgment are more difficult than ever,' end quote.

"'If only, it seemed, we could go back.

Back to another time.

Back before all this.

Back to—well, back to when?'

This is the question I always want to know the answer to.

Honestly, every time I read stories like that, and oh, there are so many of them written today,

I always have the same little fantasy. I imagine sitting these writers down and saying,

...