'The Digital Diet': How to Break Your Tech Addiction

Daniel Sieberg's new book offers tips on managing technology, regaining balance.

ByABC News
May 3, 2011, 1:29 PM

May 4, 2011— -- Overwhelmed by the endless stream of email and constant cacophony of phone calls? Are you powerless against the pull of Google and the beckoning of your BlackBerry's blinking red light?

In his new book "The Digital Diet," Daniel Sieberg, a technology reporter and ABC News contributor, shares his four-step plan for breaking your tech addiction and regaining balance in your life.

Read an excerpt from "The Digital Diet" below.

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Something from Nothing

Now that you've simplified your tech environment and pushed aside those devices for a bit, let's examine an area of increasing study: multitasking. Are we better or worse off as a result of multiple technology inputs into our lives? Do we actually get more done?

Those who say we're often better off, like Jonah Lehrer, tech writer and author of "How We Decide," claim that stimulating our brains in different ways can make us more creative and open to new ideas. Lehrer says we should sometimes put down our shields when it comes to resisting more high-tech influences in our lives, so that we'll be able to explore their effect on us in a practical way, see where it leads. And I believe that can be true -- it's a bit like freestyle jazz, where our minds check out a travel website and then our bank account and then send a text and then read a friend's Twitter feed. Certainly it opens up many avenues of discovery.

On the other hand, some experts say all the digital multitasking hinders our ability to complete each independent task successfully. A study from Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France, published in the journal Science in April 2010 found that the part of the brain known as the medial prefrontal cortex essentially divides in two when faced with more than one task. But throw in more than two tasks and the brain gets a bit baffled. The phrase "jack of all trades and master of none" comes to mind. It's not that multitasking is entirely bad (and often it's quite necessary), but splitting your brain power can be taxing. Be aware of when it's too much, when your mind is beginning to feel overwhelmed. When that happens, take a break. Close every window except one.

The main problem with massive multitaskers, according to a Stanford University study from 2009, is that they're terrible at filtering out the stuff that doesn't matter. The study's authors found this group easily distracted and incapable of ignoring irrelevant information. (This likely comes as no surprise to anyone with a teenaged son or daughter.) The researchers first ranked people's multitasking intensity by asking how many types of media they used simultaneously (print, TV, computer, phone, text, etc.). On the low end were people who reported using in the neighborhood of 1.5 types of media at the same time. Serious multitaskers were juggling more like four. Sound familiar? For the test, they presented people with a series of red and blue rectangles, blanked them out, then showed them again and asked if the red ones had changed position. The high multitaskers couldn't ignore the distraction of the blue rectangles and often failed to get it right.