Do you check your email before you get out of bed in the morning? Or soon after?
Do you look at your work email on vacation?
How often do you interrupt what you are doing to read a text? And to respond?
How often do you look down at your phone when you are talking to a friend or to your spouse?
Do you feel compelled to answer the phone? Read a text? Respond to a digital communication?
Many years ago, I was pleased when my employer gave me a Blackberry at no cost — streaming with work email 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But then again, did I really want to look at work email when I sat in my living room listening to Beethoven? Mounted on my hip, like a holster, I found myself pulling out my “smart” phone and checking email, even when I didn’t want to. Having it was promoting its use.
Some years later, when the Blackberry became obsolete, we had to use our own phones. I was an outlier — I chose not to load work email on my phone. I figured if my boss wanted to contact me after hours, she knew my phone number.
When technology brought us intelligent phones and devices connected to the internet, many of us thought — this is brilliant. We saw the internet as just another delivery system for communication, like a souped-up telephone. We could communicate instantly, with anyone, anywhere. How could that be bad?
Consider some data. According to the Centers for Disease Control, teens fit in 7½ hours of screen time a day. How often do we see kids and adults walking and texting at the same time? The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons noted that “distracted walking” results in many avoidable accidents.
The internet is not just another delivery system. It’s created a whole new mental environment, a digital state of nature where the human mind becomes a spinning instrument panel. And sometimes spinning out of control.
To wit, the diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association now includes a diagnosis called “Internet Gaming Disorder” as a classification needing further study. For some kids and adults, playing internet games can interfere with social, psychological and vocational functioning.
The pings of arriving texts and emails become highly reinforcing. We become like Pavlov’s dogs — except we’re salivating when our smartphone signals a new message has arrived.
I can’t tell you how many times my patients answer their phones in the middle of an office visit and tell the caller, “I’m sorry, I can’t talk to you now; I am at the doctor’s.” Why not just turn off the phone and let it take a message?
What does all of this mean? Is there some danger to being connected 24 hours a day to these devices? What about exposure to microwaves (that’s another discussion entirely)? How much is too much? At what age should we allow our kids to have a cell phone? How should we limit their use? Can we limit our own use or are we addicted to this technology? These are the knotty questions of the 21st century.
Here are some practical suggestions:
• Take a smartphone vacation from time to time. Put your phone away for an evening, a weekend day, or even an entire weekend. What was that like? What did you learn about yourself and your internet habits?
• Turn off your smartphone at meals, family activities, or on dates. Constant communication interferes with being in the present.
• Limit screen time — yours and your kids. Sigh. I know. I’m like a broken record. I must be a baby boomer. All things in moderation.
Paul Schoenfeld is a clinical psychologist at The Everett Clinic. His Family Talk blog can be found at www. everettclinic.com/ healthwellness-library.html.
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