Article round up

There's been a veritable storm of articles/writing recently about the effect and use of technology on our brains.
My friend Carl over at PondererPorter shared an article from CNN by Nicholas Carr and after reading his posting, there have come across my screen all manner of writings across the 'Net. (Maybe not really across the 'Net. I read a lot of the NYT as evidenced below.)

1) Is the Internet making us quick but shallow? (CNN)
2) The Uses of Half-True Alarms (review of Nicholas Carr's recent book The Shallows)
3) First Steps to Digital Detox (NYT)
4) Hooked on Gadgets and paying a Mental Price (NYT-great article, really interesting read.)
5) Op-Ed Response to Hooked on Gadgets (NYT)
6) Mind over Media: Op-Ed Response (NYT)
7) Poverty of Privacy (IDIOM) (Not so much brain effects but thought processes about self affected.)
*8*) Freegan living as a response to technology (This article raises some fascinating questions about what it means to live in a society and an appropriate level of response to consumer waste. I think its interesting that we seem as humans to trade one thing for another. Either we live very close-to-the-earth which requires an extraordinary amount of time and energy as a job or, it seems, that we live as work-people using currency to purchase the needful things. While there are people that do live in the overlap between the two views I think there is an ongoing tension between what we buy and use and don't use that the freegan movement attempts to sort out. )