Surprisingly, technology and globalization promote loneliness: an excess of stimuli induces a flurry of activity in the brain, thus destroying opportunities for reflection and freedom of thought, clogging the mind with sensory inputs saturated by network connections and television. A secluded brain, stranded in a room, sends and receives information only through technology-based media, thus often losing emotional contact with others. The over-connected brain is a lonely brain, for it risks forgoing the physiological stimuli provided by the environment, the sun, the throbbing reality of surrounding life.

Lamberto Maffei is vice president of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and professor emeritus of Neurobiology at the Scuola Normale in Pisa.