Screen Time As A Disease

“We no longer think slowly and deeply, but quickly and superficially.”

Before every waking moment of our lives were dominated by screens or ear buds, we spent a vast majority of our non-social time pondering, thinking and letting life sink in. Just like the brain needs sleep to sort out your daily thoughts and emotions, it appears your non-stimulated moments are necessary too. An article from the Journal of the Academy of Management showed that a “bored” brain is actually looking to process past information and trying to stoke up creativity.

Unfortunately, with mobile devices invading every square millimeter of our waking time, visual and audio stimulation is a near constant state of being. Young children are given phones or tablets as early as elementary school age and are brought up to use them for hours every day. Screen time is so ubiquitous that we have essentially become cyborgs. This has led to some, including paypal and Tesla founder Elon Musk, to muse about making the relationship permanent by interfacing brains with implanted devices. No joke.

In the era of perpetual screen time, the amount of reading done by even University graduates is at an all time low. We no longer think slowly and deeply, but quickly and superficially. The effects on our brains of being exposed to blue light are well known and they are not good. The non stop audio stimulus from ever available podcasts and music-on-the-go has blocked out the brain’s “me time.”

Although there is nothing wrong with the internet in and of itself, it has created a new reality. Not all of which is healthy and — like all things — can be abused. Is it possible to balance our lives and to keep the benefits of our modern information society, while respecting the natural, healthy needs of our brains?

Of course there is.

Here is a simple, de-cyborging protocol that can help:

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