You're having a lovely conversation, but think nothing of breaking the mood by grabbing your smartphone to confirm (more likely dispute) something. You're having a lovely, relaxing cup of coffee at your neighborhood hangout, but can't sit still when the WiFi dies. You tweet incessantly. Check e-mail like you're paid to. And until your most recent adventure is posted on Facebook, you feel like somehow, it hasn't really happened yet.
Sound familiar? If so, you might want to holster it and pick up Daniel Sieberg's new book, "The Digital Diet: The 4-Step Plan to Break your Tech Addiction and Regain Balance in Your Life." In this self-help book slash personal narrative, the New York technology reporter outlines a 28-day plan to slim down on the technology that overwhelms our lives.
"There aren't any caloric labels on technology telling us what's a healthy amount or what we really need," says Sieberg. Yet like the food we eat, technology consumption affects our mental, physical, and emotional health – and not always for the better.
This book is not another woe-is-me-technology-is-evil diatribe (thank goodness). Instead, Sieberg takes a pragmatic approach to dealing with the ever-increasing flood of gadgets, apps, and websites.
'It's the digital diet, not the digital fast or the digital starvation,' Sieberg says.But fear not -- you won't have to go cold turkey if you don't really want to.
"It's the digital diet, not the digital fast or the digital starvation," says Sieberg. In the same way that many different kinds of food can be part of a healthy diet, different forms, types, and uses of technology can make up the optimal tech diet. The point is to make that diet a personal decision, not a mindless default.
It starts an awareness of the role technology is actually playing in our lives, the dependencies we build on it, and yes, the harm it may be causing.
For Sieberg, this awareness started in the winter of 2009 at a holiday get-together. His 1,664 Facebook friends and 866 Twitter followers didn't offer much solace when he could barely remember details about the family and friends standing right in front of him.
"I thought I was this super, uber productive guy who had all the social network profiles, all the devices, and was constantly connected," says Sieberg. "I realized I had lost the connections that mattered most."
It was time for something drastic: detox. Sieberg quit all his social networks – his "primary poisons" – and began his own version of the digital diet, which would serve as the basis for the book. The detox phase might be the scariest, he admits, but it's also just a tiny part of the whole plan. The point is to give people a chance to take a break, get some perspective, and start a discussion.
Divided into four sections (rethink, reboot, reconnect, and revitalize), the book is chock full of various tips and exercises. Let your phone chill out in the fridge during dinnertime and only take it out after dessert. Try going for a day without using Google Maps or GPS. Start a family contest for who can text the least in a month. The idea is to pick and choose whatever exercises work for you, and tailor your own diet based on your tech needs.
Every few pages we get a new quirky factoid about our technology use. Did you know that ten percent of people 24 and younger think its OK to text during sex? Or that every new email or text may trigger the same reward mechanisms in the brain as in other sorts of addictions like gambling?
There's also an entire section devoted to programs and apps that make you feel, think, and organize better. Braingle, BrainTeaser, and Cup O' Joe are mental gymnastics apps that claim to improve your brainpower. iFitness and traineo are designed to help you construct a workout plan or weight loss program. RescueTime (Sieberg's personal favorite) is a time management software that tracks and blocks time spent online, so you can tell exactly how many minutes you were actually on Amazon instead of working on that PowerPoint.
"It's not just going with the latest and greatest, or whatever the Jones's have, or whatever X company says will improve your life," Sieberg says. It's being educated about your choices, and making all those devices work for you.
Sieberg does have a knack for wordplay, tossing in all sorts of amusing terms like tech turds: the gadgets plopped onto the table during a lunch date or at dinner, tech-sonality: our online personas that don't always match our real ones, and the Virtual Weight Index: like Body Mass Index, except it measures weight on the mind.
Sometimes that playfulness can get a little over the top. Do I really need to be reminded that to "boot up" a book I merely have to open it? Or that the folded object that gets ink all over my fingers is called a… wait for it… newspaper? But overall, the tongue-in-cheek side comments make for an entertaining read.
I'll admit I didn't attempt detox, but I have thought twice before reaching for my iPhone first think in the morning, and I've tried to stop impulsively checking every Twitter alert that blips at the top right of my screen. Whether it's one exercise, a few tips, or the full 28-day plan, this might be a diet we could all afford to try.
