Breaking Technology Addictions

Mike Schaffner points us to an eWeek report on a recent poll by Reuters that discussed how Blackberrys and laptops are blurring the distinction between home and work life.

He recommends the following useful techniques:

1. Take action to reduce the number of unnecessary emails that you receive
2. Prioritize your actions - take control of when you check and respond to email

He also recommends going into your Blackberry and turning the new email notification off so that you're not tempted to check it every time a new one arrives. The key to remember is that laptops and Blackberrys are not your jobs; instead they are tools to help you do your jobs.

Here are the comments I left:

You hit a nerve in me with this one, Mike, on a couple of levels.

1. I am totally for getting information when it's convenient for me. I consume most of my media on-demand these days. The idea of watching a program at a specific time is something I'm growing out of. The same with online media (blogs, podcasting, and the like). I'm learning to consume it on my schedule.
2. Having said that, I'm also a guy who checks every email that comes in and who also spends so much of my time lately watching what's going on with Twitter (http://twitter.com).

I have recently found out how to change the notifications for Outlook and GMail, but I could do a lot better with Twitter.

What about you?