This month’s Ensign magazine has an article I read and really enjoyed about keeping safe and balanced in today’s technological world. This is something that I express my worry to Josh about a lot – how are we going to raise our kids in this world, when everything’s changing so fast? I guess I’m kind of a technophobe sometimes when it comes to the Internet and Facebook and stuff like that. (Poor Josh, technological genius, married to a kind-of-sort-of technophobe.) I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m pretty tech savvy. But sometimes the digital world can be scary, right? Especially when thinking about raising kids?

Anyway, the article had a section called “10 Signs of Digital Overload.” Here they are:

1. Slipping away from activities with people to check e-mail or social networking sites.
2. Checking the same sites repeatedly within a short period of time.
3. Spending little time outside.
4. Finding it hard to complete a task such as writing a report without frequently breaking away to check e-mail or unrelated websites.
5. Spending little time in face-to-face interactions with friends.
6. Going online or using a digital device when you feel stressed or want to avoid an unpleasant task.
7. Family members spending most of their time at home in separate rooms interacting with screens.
8. Frequently using digital devices to entertain a child instead of talking, singing, playing, or reading with him or her.
9. Checking the computer first thing in the morning, or getting up during the night to use digital devices.
10. Spending long stretches of time surfing for content, often viewing content that is inappropriate or borderline.

I tried to answer the questions honestly, and I was a little surprised to see how familiar some sounded (like, ahem, 2 or 9). But really it’s not anything I didn’t know. I’ve felt recently that I’m too addicted to checking my email and too prone to wasting time on my computer, and I’ve wanted to fix it. Fortunately, the article also has a “10 Ways to Cut Back” section, yay. :) Then Josh helped me set some specific goals (not quite as drastic as getting rid of my laptop completely, which I considered) to help me not feel so digitally overloaded.

So here’s what I’ve done for the past week: First, I keep my laptop and its charger in the basement, rather than by my bedside or in the living room or wherever’s convenient. Just keeping it down there is a huge barrier to me checking my email or wasting time throughout the day. Then if I do need my computer to do a specific task (like post to our blog :)) I’ll bring it upstairs, but then try to put it downstairs again when I’m done.

Then I set a goal to check my email just once a day, in the afternoon after Josh was home so I wasn’t wasting Carson’s nap time online when I could be doing more uplifting things. I gave myself 30 minutes after Josh came home of personal “Internet” time, when I could check my email, read Google Reader, etc. And really, that shouldn’t be hard, right? To check my email once a day? It’s not even like I get that many important emails. It’s totally reasonable to check it once a day.

But, sad to say, in the beginning, it was hard! At first checking my email would always be in the back of my mind, and I’d eagerly await until I Josh came home and I could. But by the end of the week, I didn’t think about it during the day anymore. I felt free to spend my time and energy on other things.

And I really noticed a difference, too! The biggest difference was in how productive I felt. I felt like I could get so much done! And I loved the feeling it gave me, too, of just knowing that I wasn’t addicted, and I didn’t have the need to run to my computer every hour and check my email.

So I’m all for this new email-once-a-day thing. And for keeping my computer far away and using it only to accomplish specific tasks, not to waste time. Now, all that said, I’m far from perfect. :) Yesterday I had a relapse and checked my email at least seven times. But that’s okay! Tomorrow’s a new week and I’m going to start with a clean slate.

Josh says: By the way, I’ve been doing heavy research into email usage and information overload for a capstone project this semester, and came across an interesting research paper that experimented with the optimum number of times to check email in a day. A lot of us are “continuous checkers,” meaning we know about email right as it comes in (because our computer chimes or our smartphone vibrates). This is, as you might guess, the worst type of checking because it continually distracts you from the task at hand. Some studies have shown that it can take anywhere from 24 to 40 minutes to get totally back to a task after being distracted by an email! No wonder we feel like we are wasting our days on it. But back to the paper: with continuous checking being the worst, checking email 8 times was still better but not great, but checking email 4 times a day or less was optimum. You schedule just 4, 2, or, like Paige, 1 time a day to check your email, get it all done at once, and you will be able to get your more important tasks done much more quickly and waste less time getting distracted by these less important emails. Just thought you’d want to know!