Your Stone Age Brain in the Screen Age: Coping with Digital Distraction and Sensory Overload

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Richard E. Cytowic

Your Stone Age Brain in the Screen Age

Name: Your Stone Age Brain in the Screen Age
Price: 57.59 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9780262057264

Coping with Digital Distraction and Sensory Overload

Richard E. Cytowic

$63.95 $57.59

Paperback

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English

MIT Press
15 September 2026

Society & culture: general

An award-winning neurologist on the Stone-Age roots of our screen addictions, and what to do about them.

The human brain hasn t changed much since the Stone Age, let alone in the mere thirty years of the Screen Age. That s why, according to neurologist Richard Cytowic who, Oliver Sacks observed, 'changed the way we think of the human brain' our brains are so poorly equipped to resist the incursions of Big Tech: They are programmed for the wildly different needs of a prehistoric world. In Your Stone Age Brain in the Screen Age, Cytowic explains exactly how this programming works from the brain s point of view. What he reveals in this book shows why we are easily addicted to screen devices; why young, developing brains are particularly vulnerable; why we need silence; and what we can do to push back.

In the engaging storytelling style of his popular TED Talk, Cytowic draws an easily comprehensible picture of the Stone Age brain s workings the function of neurotransmitters like dopamine in basic instincts for survival such as desire and reward; the role of comparison in emotion, and emotion in competition; and, most significantly, the orienting reflex, one of the unconscious circuits that automatically focus, shift, and sustain attention. Given this picture, the nature of our susceptibility to digital devices becomes clear, along with the possibility of how to break their spell.

Full of practical actions that we can start taking right away, Your Stone Age Brain in the Screen Age offers compelling evidence that we can change the way we use technology, resist its addictive power over us, and take back the control we have lost.

By: Richard E. Cytowic
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9780262057264
ISBN 10: 0262057263
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 15 September 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Richard E. Cytowic, a pioneering researcher in synesthesia, is Professor of Neurology at George Washington University. He is the author of Synesthesia, The Man Who Tasted Shapes, The Neurological Side of Neuropsychology, and, with David M. Eagleman, the Montaigne Medal winner Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia, all published by the MIT Press.

Reviews for Your Stone Age Brain in the Screen Age: Coping with Digital Distraction and Sensory Overload

“Cytowic's common-sense takeaway—Use technology less and only on what really matters.” —Booklist “This is a book that it would benefit us all to read, and heed . . . compelling to read, truly fascinating.” —Narrative Species