How Workplace Tech Can Make You Sick

 

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"If something interests me, I have to know everything about it," Koontz told ABC News. "I've watched friends who are writers who get on the Internet and they start spending time online and pretty soon, they're spending three, four hours a day ... and I said I know that's going to be me."

While some may consider Koontz's avoidance of the Net a bit drastic, his reason may have some merit. A survey released by the University of Maryland on Thursday finds that e-mail users now spend about 17 hours a year just deleting unwanted junk e-mails.

Koontz says he doesn't even e-mail his publisher in part because it's tough to keep an e-mail address secret. And by avoiding the addictive nature of the Net, he can focus more on cranking out works of suspense, such as "Life Expectancy," his latest novel.

"It's something that I don't need and so I'm doing perfectly fine without it," said Koontz. "As you age, you realize time is a thing of essence. It's the one thing you can't get anymore of. And so I'd better spend it the way I really want to spend it."

Maybe that's why he's one of only a dozen authors to have 10 novels rise to the top of "The New York Times" best-seller list.

-- Micahel Barr, ABC News

Cybershake is produced for ABC News Radio by Andrea J. Smith.