I just finished "Hamlet's BlackBerry," which is exactly about taking time to disconnect to get "depth." A little preachy some times, but thought-provoking.
Basically, we haven't developed the social norms needed to put some space between our brains and maximal connectedness, but we can look to history and personal experience to try and figure out what some of them would look like.
It's got some good historical bits about how different great thinkers have dealt with technological change (writing, printing press, telegraph were as disruptive as the Internet). It's also got some personal anecdotes of the author's decision to have an 'Internet Sabbath' every weekend, where from Friday night to Monday morning there is no connectivity in his house.
I'm not sure that engineering (including social engineering) is going to work in a situation like this, but it's probably not very harmful to try.
Basically, we haven't developed the social norms needed to put some space between our brains and maximal connectedness, but we can look to history and personal experience to try and figure out what some of them would look like.
It's got some good historical bits about how different great thinkers have dealt with technological change (writing, printing press, telegraph were as disruptive as the Internet). It's also got some personal anecdotes of the author's decision to have an 'Internet Sabbath' every weekend, where from Friday night to Monday morning there is no connectivity in his house.
I'm not sure that engineering (including social engineering) is going to work in a situation like this, but it's probably not very harmful to try.