The Digital Diet: The 4-step plan to break your tech addiction and regain balance in your life

++ Fukinsei: asymmetry or imbalance (Don’t get caught up in checking every e-mail all the time.) ++ Kanso: simplicity or elimination of clutter (Keep your favorite sites to a minimum, close down old accounts, and avoid carrying too many devices.) ++ Koko: austerity or bare essentials (Streamline your devices, services, and even contact list.) ++ Sh

“e-obesity” problem.

The study found that children who spent three

The only difference was that I wouldn’t be broadcasting my every move to 1,664 friends, most of whom I didn’t even know.

“Chill out”—the next time your son or daughter comes to the dinner table with a smart phone or iPod or laptop, try putting it in the fridge during the entire meal. It won’t do any harm to the device. Then serve it as the final course, after the dessert.

or more hours a day using technology had a 17 percent to 44 percent higher risk of being overweight and a 10 percent to 61 percent higher risk of obesity.

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.

“With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations—none of which I know how to work—information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. All of this is not only putting new pressures on you. It is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.” —Pr

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.