Technology is a beautiful and wondrous thing. We can shop online, do online banking, send electronic greetings to our family and friends, download music, watch movies on our laptops, dictate to our computers using voice-activated software, and read electronic books on portable handheld devices — among hundreds of other things, most of which were unavailable in our grandparents’ lifetime.
I see nothing wrong with reading e-books or performing any of the above activities with the aid of technology. But we should limit our use of technology. What will happen to us if we stop reading altogether and remain cocooned in our homes, infrequently meet personally with friends and relatives, and spend more time watching movies than interacting with our children.
Nicholas Carr, in his book, The Shallows: what the Internet is doing to our brains, claims he has noticed changes in his own reading. He loses concentration after a page or two, becomes fidgety, loses track of the story line and looks for something else to do.

The ability to focus is one of the most critical brain functions according to Barbara Strauch, author of The secret life of the grown-up brain. And this ability depends on the strength of our executive skills, which are currently under attack by the unrelenting impact of both technology and our fast-paced lifestyle.
Multitasking taxes the brain, and gets progressively worse as we age. Have you ever been distracted by a telephone call only to forget what you were going to do before the distraction? The other morning I found myself brushing my teeth with after-shave lotion! (But others might attribute this to senility.) Research indicates you can have several motor programs running simultaneously, such as steering a car, chewing gum and reaching for a cell phone; but you can only focus your conscious attention on one thing according to Shelley Carson, author of Your creative brain, because your brain thinks sequentially.
Our lifestyle seems to be changing to one of constant rushing to get more things done, and researchers studying people’s behavior at traffic lights have spotted people combing their hair, applying makeup, eating breakfast cereal, reading newspapers, talking on cell phones and even using laptops. To quote Barton Sparagon of the Meyer Friedman Institute in San Francisco, “Hurrying is a struggle against time — and that’s unhealthy.” And Faith popcorn, author of The popcorn report, claims “Speed-eating has developed into a fine art.”
Cramming more activities into a day causes stress, and stress causes sleeplessness, and lack of sleep causes impatience and the ability to concentrate (among the other ailments mentioned in my brief book, Sleep: a time management strategy.. It’s a vicious circle. Is technology to blame? No, we are to blame. We have allowed technology to manage us rather than the other way around.
Controlling technology and taking action to strengthen our brain-based executive skills, we can not only cope with the rapid increase in technology, information and speed, we can increase our productivity and our ability to manage our time and our lives as well.