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Has Digital Overload Become Just Too Much?
Who among us hasn't wondered at times whether our increasingly Twitterized-Facebooked-Instant Messaged-E-Mail-centric lives are in danger of leaving us fried to a crisp? And this isn't a closet call to the Luddite lurking within. Technology has made our lives fantastically easier but there's also a price to be paid. A big one.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)
A recent estimate by research firm Basex puts the annual economic loss due to information overload at work at a whopping $900 billion. And that's not even taking into account the less-easily quantifiable toll on people as technology increasingly intrudes into our personal lives.
Earlier this summer, the Council for Research Excellence reported that the average American adult spends 8-1/2 hours a day staring into screens. And as CBS's own Dr. Jennifer Ashton noted earlier this summer, distractions are taking a toll on heavy multi-taskers. "People think they're refreshing themselves by filling in small bits of time with games, emails, texts etc, but the researchers say it's actually fatiguing and making people less creative. Some neuroscientists go even further, saying our brains can become addicted to the digital stimulation."
Obviously, this is a subjective question but let us know what you think where you fit in the equation. Leave a note in the talkback section below, and don't forget to add a vote in our Friday poll.
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Charles Cooper is an executive editor at CNET News. He has covered technology and business for more than 25 years, working at CBSNews.com, the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie.
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