“I think that we are training our nervous systems to expect a certain kind of stimulation and it’s a kind of addiction, and I’m not using that as a metaphor. Every time I check my email, I‘m looking for a little packet of pleasure that gets delivered when I get an email. I feel like I’m a rat with an electrode planted in my brain, stimulating myself… Rats will do that 2, 000 times an hour if this stimulus is pleasurable…

It’s because it’s this kind of addiction, and I think that when it’s withdrawn, we become anxious. But you’re right to be anxious about your anxiety because it suggests that we’re - my God! We’re losing the ability to do, or at least comfortably do, all kinds of things that really should be normal and natural and comfortable for us, like reading.”