This morning the front page of The New York Times featured the article “Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price” by Matt Richtel. Clark Strand’s recent piece on Green Meditation (Spring 2008) and my own interest on the subject led me to I click on it and read it… or try to read it at least. I don’t think of myself as a particularly technologically savvy person—indeed I pride myself sometimes on being reasonably disconnected—yet I wasn’t able finish the article, which was five pages long, without checking my email (twice), thinking about lunch, and looking at a restaurant’s menu online. It may have been my morning cup of tea or it may be that I, like some of the subjects in the article, given the ability to instantly access a variety of information, have a difficult time weeding out irrelevant information. Are we losing the ability to be engaged with the moment at the same time as we are developing more ways to be engaged in the digital world?
Read the full New York Times article here. Read Clark Strand’s article in the Spring Issue here.
UPDATE: For some practical advice here, check out Marc Lesser’s “Do Less, Accomplish More.”