In an age of information overload it is more important than ever to find time for stillness writer Pico Iyer said at the World Government Summit on Tuesday.

In a lecture entitled "45 minute Journey to Stillness in a Digital World" Iyer noted that human beings today are facing an unprecedented amount of distractions and "data obesity" driven by technology and interconnectivity.

"All of us are in this vicious cycle that in order to live whereby we feel that in order to live we need to be online and accessible to our friends our family our clients 24 hours a day 365 days a year" he said. "But if you are..you can't live in a deeper sense."

As an example Iyer noted that over the 45 minutes of his lecture the human race would gather "twelve times the information that exists in the entire American Library of Congress".

"Stillness has never been as difficult and therefore as urgent as it is right now" he noted. Additionally Iyer noted that studies have shown that it takes the average human being 25 minutes to fully recover concentration after a phone call but that the average person receives a call every 11 minutes.

"The more you try keep up with the moment the further you fall behind" he said. "It feels like the sensation of an accelerating rollercoaster. You never asked to get on but now you don't know how to get off."

"It's a feeling of having more and more time-saving devices in your hands and in your pockets but somehow it seems less and less time" he added. "It's a feeling of being able to make more contact with people on the furthest corners of the planet but in that very process losing contact with yourself."

Iyer noted that the 21st century is the first time in recorded history in which people have experienced such overwhelming amounts of information - meaning that the human race is not properly adapted to living lives driven by data and communication.

"Humans were never meant to live at a pace determined by machines. The only way we could do that is by relinquishing our humanity and becoming machines ourselves" he said. "We were meant to live at the speed of life not at the speed of light."

To cope with the Internet age Iyer - who is constantly on the move as part of his work - advocated taking a step back to be still and reflect.

"As a journalist I know I can only keep an understanding of the news is by stepping away from it" he said. "(It's like) the sensation of walking into a museum and finding yourself a few inches away from a vast and complicated canvas. You realize you have to step further and further back. Maybe when you're 20 metres away it suddenly clicks into focus and you see what the picture is saying to you."

"So long as you're in the thick of the world or in the thick of your life it's very hard to make sense of either one of them" he said. "If you don't give yourself a break it's really hard to make a breakthrough."

Bernd Debusmann Jr. Originally from Mexico City I've been in Dubai since January 2015. Before arriving in in the UAE I worked as a general news reporter in TV and print in Mexico City NYC and Washington DC. I'm interested in defence issues politics technology aviation and history. In my spare time i enjoy traveling and football - I'm a keen fan of Chelsea FC. I developed an interest in the Middle East traveling through Jordan and the West Bank. I have a BA in Political Science from Dickinson College in the USA and an MA in International Journalism from City University London.