It is no secret that educators are teaching a generation that is more stressed out, debt-ridden, depressed, anxious, impulsive, scholastically amoral, self-entitled, bored, and apathetic than perhaps any other since Aristotle sauntered through the Lyceum. But what "really" worries the author is students' preoccupation with social media. Their need to stay perpetually connected through Facebook and texting, in particular, creates a daunting fire wall to learning. The author argues that true learning requires intimacy, with self and others, of a kind that Facebook and other social media do not foster. Last spring, he tried an experiment--asking students to carve out a four-hour window in which they would detach from all forms of social media (entertainment technology, too) and spend time alone. Then they had to write about the experience in a journal. Students wrote that they sought solitude in trees; they confronted their parents about switching majors after watching thunderstorms from atop parking garages; and they not only made eye contact with but smiled at complete strangers. One student wrote about spending time painting, which she had not done since high school. "When the four hours was up, I did something radical," she wrote. "I kept my cellphone in my backpack for the rest of the day. Know what? I hadn't felt so light in years."