Forty-six years have passed since Marshall McLuhan's landmark observation about technology overtaking content: The medium is the message. Twenty-six years have elapsed since Neil Postman's prescient conclusion about modern media's impact on society: We're amusing ourselves to death.

These prophets were talking mainly about television. But today's digital landscape, with its laptops and cell phones, iPods and iPads, and texting and tweeting, have multiplied the effect many fold. A deluge of data is transforming more than just our culture, politics and family life. Technology is "rewiring our brains," the New York Times said this week, quoting some of the world's leading brain scientists.

Reporter Matt Richtel's account focuses on a techno-savvy Bay Area family whose lives have been overtaken by gadgets. It's a sad tale because in it we recognize ourselves and many people we know, or used to know, back when we had time for human interaction. But now, with our need to process a relentless flow of incoming and outgoing information, our personal relationships have been devalued, our manners coarsened, our creativity dampened, our thinking fragmented, our attention span destroyed. We tend to lose our trains of concentration.

The implications are worrisome because ... hold that thought ...We're getting an e-mail about the oil spill in the gulf. The Coast Guard says the cleanup may take years. Have you seen the photos of those birds? Where were we? Oh, yes. Multitasking. We only think we're accomplishing more. But we're not. BTW, Karen just wrote on my wall about the party she's throwing "2morrow nite." Can we come? I'm texting her now: "Gr8 cu then!"

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. It's heartbreaking to see those brown pelicans covered in sludge. Is "sludge" the right word? Better Google it. "Sludge: Precipitate produced by sewage." Probably more accurate to describe it as crude oil. OMG, can't go to Karen's party. Got Twins tickets. I'll text her in a minute.

Where were we? Technology's effect on our brains. Scientists told the Times that the continual bursts of digital information satisfy a primitive impulse within us to quickly assess whether these messages represent opportunities or threats, a kind of fight-or-flight dilemma. We draw an addictive excitement from this constant stream of stimulation, so much so that life gets boring rather quickly when we unplug. So we don't unplug.

Imagine that 50 years ago future technologies were routinely described as "labor-saving devices." What a joke! Technology has made it possible for fewer people to do more and more work -- and in a more portable way. One consequence is that the barrier between work life and home life has disintegrated. We work all the time!

One question lingers: Should we go to Karen's party or the Twins game? The Braves are in town, and I'd love to see this kid Heyward, the young phenom. Google Braves. He's hitting .266 with 10 dingers.

How many of you know that the Braves moved to Atlanta from Milwaukee? And before that, they were the Boston Braves. Did you know they were founded in 1871 as the Boston Red Stockings (not to be confused with the Red Sox, a separate outfit)? Once I got a pair of red socks for Christmas. But I digress.

The Times reports that the average worker changes screens 37 times per hour, constantly responding to e-mails and social-networking options. It says we have tripled our information intake over the last 50 years -- but no one thinks we're three times smarter.

Karen's party will be simultaneously fun and smart. We'll discuss how technology is frying our brains. Then she's got this awesome 60-inch screen where we can play Super Smash Bros. Brawl. And somebody said she's got the new 3G iPad, which I hear is TDF.