Are you checking email or tweeting or texting as you read this session description? Today, many of us are hyper-connected through the web, mobile technologies and social media. What does that mean for our sanity, productivity, career, and health? Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, will kick your morning off by talking about the impact technology can have on our work as legislative staffers and as individuals, and discuss how different generations view and deal with being hyper-connected.

Being connected to the web, mobile technologies and social media have made many of us feel over or hyper-connected. Could being hyper-connected actually benefit younger generations? Lee Rainie will review the latest data that shows how constant contact among younger generations allows them to be nimble, quick-acting multi-taskers who count on the Internet as their external brain and approach problems in a different way from older generations. But could this also lead to a generation that looks for quick fixes, has a loss of patience and eliminates deep-thinking skills?