I’m no Zen master and I don’t expect you to teach your children to meditate all day. At the same time, the notion of mindfulness has much broader meaning than as an Eastern philosophy or for practitioners of Buddhism. In fact, it has tremendous significance for your children growing up in this crazy new world of technology.

Mindfulness is typically thought of in two ways. First, it involves the ability to focus attention completely and nonjudgmentally in immediate experience. Second, mindfulness involves embracing an attitude of openness, acceptance, curiosity, and novel thinking. Quite simply, being mindful allows us to fully experience whatever we are doing and gain the full benefits of what the experience has to offer.

It isn’t a stretch to see that technology fosters mindlessness rather than mindfulness. It is decidedly not in the self or in the moment. Technology is all about the constant flow of information and being connected with others. Mobile phones, texting, and social media are sending children a nonstop stream of information, thus part of their focus is on the past information that has arrived in their mental “inbox” and is accumulating rapidly.

Children are also forced to focus on the future and how they’re going to respond to and send to their “outbox” the information that is quickly building up. Social media adds to this burden by drawing children’s focus away from themselves and onto the social world around them and forcing them to assume an external point of reference for themselves.

Children have little opportunity to step away from this barrage of information and comparison. This constant pull from both the past, the future, and the outside world puts children in a hyper-vigilant and stressful state. It also prevents children from focusing and thinking in the present, allowing them to ponder, process, and problem solve in the here-and-now.

In the frenetic life of 24/7 connectivity, children can feel overwhelmed by the onslaught of information being directed at them. They need to be able to turn off the “fire hose” of information periodically and just sit quietly with themselves, in other words, they need to be mindful.

Between the unlimited exposure to technology and the often nonstop, overscheduled lives that so many children lead these days, there is little opportunity for them to ever experience anything that approximates a Zen-like mindfulness or calm. It’s very likely that the seeking and reward centers of your children’s brains are going bonkers with little respite. This constant intense brain activity takes its toll, both physically and psychologically, on children.

In this extreme state, children are missing out on the developmentally healthy and recuperative benefits of mindfulness. They aren’t able to fully absorb themselves in the moment, whether reading a book, engaging in imaginary play, or going for a hike in the woods, which means they don’t get to fully experience all of the great stuff that these opportunities provide. Children aren’t allowed to rest their minds and bodies and recharge their psychic batteries. They also aren’t able to learn the practice of deep immersion in the present which offers benefits in many aspects of their lives, from basic well being and relationships to achievement in school, sports, and the performing arts. Importantly, children miss out on the ephemeral, yet richly satisfying, feeling of joy that can only come from being totally engaged in an experience.

Mindfulness isn’t just experienced in the soul of the beholder. Rather, research conducted over the last three decades has demonstrated profound physical and psychological benefits including more positive emotions, greater resilience to bad experiences, reduced stress, anxiety, and depression, improved immune system activity, and increased sense of well-being following a regimen of mindfulness exercises.

Recent research has reported that when people are focused on a task they indicate that they have a greater sense of well being than when their mind wanders. Distractions prevent this state of “flow” and actually makes us less happy. The growth of technology in the last decade has clearly increased the frequency and intensity of these distractions.

What is the attraction of such distraction for children? I don’t think it’s attraction at all so much as an unintended consequence of this recent onrush of technology. As digital natives, your children are simply adapting to the wired world in which they live; they’re surrounded by technology and people who are using it, so they have little choice but to join in. This immersion in technology, encouraged by their social worlds and often not limited by their parents, has basically forced children to develop attitudes, expectations, behavior, and habits that aren’t actually good for them. Additionally, as other research has demonstrated, continuous connectivity produces neurochemical activity in the human brain akin to drug use and gambling.

Not only does technology appear to interfere with your children experiencing happiness, but, even worse, in their always-connected, constantly distracted lives, children may not learn what real happiness is and where it comes from. Children have come to mistake stimulation, momentary pleasure, and that neurochemical high gained from being always connected for real happiness which, the research indicates, actually comes from meaningful relationships, valued goals, and, yes, absorption in an activity.

Paradoxically, children can absorb themselves very deeply in technology, for example, video games, spending hours undistracted and fully focused. This concentration appears to occur due to the neurochemical “buzz” that new technology offers rather than the mindful focus that occurs when children are wrapped, and enrapted, in life.

Research is demonstrating that, in the constant distraction to which children are now so vulnerable, technology may be causing them to lose their ability to absorb themselves in activities such as reading for extended periods. This development has obvious implications for performance and productivity academically and, later, professionally.

At a more transcendental level, this lost ability may prevent children from learning to find delight in the minutiae of life: the subtlety of the written language found in a book, the smell of lilacs while out for a walk, the sight of a hummingbird extracting nectar from a flower, the intellectual and emotional enjoyment of a stimulating conversation. Without these “simple pleasures” perhaps what will be most lost is the depth of happiness that can only come from unmediated, complete, and sublime engagement in life.

So, consider this. Why would you allow your children to engage in activities that make them both less productive and less happy? Yet that is precisely what happens when you give your children license to multitask or use technology in a way that prevents them from focusing on the task at hand and interferes with their ability to learn to focus intently and for extended periods of time. I ask you then, do you want your children to grow up to be mindful or mindless? The choice is yours.

Decision making is another aspect of children’s thinking that seems to be suffering as a result of the latest technology. This poor decision making is illustrated by events over the last few years involving young people making egregiously bad decisions that involve technology (not to mention the frequent examples occurring in the adult world!).  For example, teenagers whose “sexting” to a friend is released in cyberspace, embarrassing or illegal behavior that’s recorded on mobile phones and uploaded onto the Web, and the tragic consequences of cyberbullying.

In looking at decision making among children, let me begin with a brief lesson in brain anatomy and functioning. Children start off at a severe disadvantage when it comes to decision making because the prefrontal cortex doesn’t fully develop until well past adolescence. The prefrontal cortex is instrumental to so-called executive functioning, namely, determining good from bad, planning, recognizing future consequences, predicting outcomes, and the ability to suppress socially inappropriate behavior. This means that children begin their lives “behind the curve” when it comes to decision making; their default is to make poor decisions. So, anything that makes bad decision making easier for children to act on just adds insult to injury.

Let’s start by putting bad decisions in their proper historical context. Humans have been prone to flawed decision making for as long as we have roamed the earth. Whether a mild act of embarrassing stupidity, such as putting one’s foot in one’s mouth with an untoward comment, or an act of career-ending idiocy, such as insulting the boss around the water cooler, faulty decision making is a decidedly human attribute.

Why have we not evolved into better decision makers after so many eons of bad decisions? Because we have yet to gain mastery over our primal urges or our unconscious needs and insecurities, both the primary drivers of poor decisions. Nor have we been able to avoid falling prey to the myriad of cognitive biases (e.g., selective attention, rationalization) that blur our lens of reason. All of these forces conspire to prevent us from gathering sufficient information, analyzing it effectively, and using it exclusively to come to “rational” decisions (in other words, we will never be like Star Trek’s Mr. Spock). Everything that I’ve just described about all people goes double for children.

Before the recent technological advances, there was more time for children to avoid acts of ill-advised decision making. For example, when a teenaged boy was angry at the girl who just broke up with him, he had write the imprudent letter, put it in an envelope, address and place it in the mailbox, and wait for the mail carrier to arrive. There was, as a result, ample time for him to reconsider the suitability of that particular course of action. Due to the slowness of communication in those primitive days of snail mail, children had the opportunity to, for example, calm down, get some feedback from a parent or friend, reflect on their situation, consider the consequences, change their minds, prevent bad behavior, and avoid potential embarrassment, disgrace, or criminal charges. Plus, the “blast area” (think dynamite) was limited by the still unsophisticated means of communicating those poor decisions to the world.

The technological developments of the last decade have made poor decision making easier, more immediate, and more widely consequential. Technology discourages children from thinking and deliberation, and promotes acting on their most base impulses, emotions, and needs, for example, anger, fear, or need for approval. Children can make regrettable decisions more quickly, be caught in badly conceived acts more readily, and be more publicly humiliated before a far broader audience than ever before. Returning to my rejection example, that entire process of rejection (by a text message perhaps) and poorly thought-out reaction can now occur in a matter of seconds, with fewer than 140 characters, and can subsequently be broadcast to millions in a matter of minutes. Making horrendous decisions has never been easier or faster for children. The immediate and collateral damage (think 500-megaton nuclear bomb) can be staggering in comparison to generations past.

With the emergence of the Web, email, mobile phones with cameras, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, gossip web sites, and online sleuths, there are newer, faster, and more creative ways to have dreadful decision making illuminated for anyone with an Internet connection to see. Plus, these decisions have a much-longer “afterlife” because of the digital fingerprints that they leave and are so difficult to erase. What do the many recent examples of uninspired decision making in this high-tech era have in common? Opportunity, ease, speed, reach, and irreversibility.

Don’t think that popular culture is going to get off lightly when it comes to decision making. To the contrary, while technology again can cause children to make bad decisions by the very nature of its design, it can’t be blamed for those poor decisions. With popular culture, it’s an entirely different story. Popular culture wants your children to make flawed decisions because what is usually bad for them is good for popular culture, that is to say, profitable.

In fact, popular culture wants to take your children’s decisions out of their hands—and yours—and put those decisions in its control. Popular culture wants to make your children’s decisions for them, in what they should think, how they should feel, and how they should act. More specifically, popular culture wants to decide for your children what they wear, what they eat and drink, what television and movies to watch, what video games to play, what music to listen to, and what magazines to read. In other words, popular culture wants to dictate how your children spend their money and yours. To that end, popular culture wants your children to be impulsive, demanding, greedy, and selfish, in other words, bad decision makers.

There are important lessons to be learned by both your children and you from these popular culture-induced and technology-encouraged poor decisions. For your children, the lessons are usually learned after the fact when the damage is already done. Sadly, such bad decisions can haunt children’s lives for years to come. For you, the lessons involve ensuring that your children don’t have unlimited and unguided access to popular culture and technology that can aid and abet poor decisions. Perhaps more importantly, they mean proactively teaching your children how to make good decisions and, in doing so, accelerate the development of the prefrontal cortex that is ultimately at fault. More on what you can do to help your children become good decision makers in my next post.

Like many digital natives, your children are probably on their way to becoming lifelong multitaskers (or so you think). As the research indicates, children these days spend about seven-and-a-half hours a day interacting with technology unrelated to school and when multitasking is counted, that number jumps to an astonishing ten-and-three-quarter hours. Your children may be doing their homework, checking their text messages, surfing the Web, and listening to music, all at the same time (or so they think). Why do they multitask? The short answer is because they can and it’s what just about every young person does these days.

There’s only one problem with this scenario: there is no such thing as multitasking—at least not in the way you may think of it. The fact is that multitasking, as most people understand it, is a myth that has been promulgated by the “technological-industrial complex” to make everyone feel more competent, efficient, productive, and, well, cool.

Real multitasking involves engaging in two tasks simultaneously. Here’s the catch though. It’s only possible if two conditions are met: 1) at least one of the tasks is so well learned as to be automatic, meaning no focus or thought is necessary to engage in the task (e.g., walking or eating) and 2) they involve different types of brain processing. For example, children can study effectively while listening to classical music because reading comprehension and processing instrumental music engage different parts of the brain. However, the ability to retain information while reading and listening to music with lyrics declines significantly because both tasks activate the language center of the brain.

Your children are actually “task switching.” Rather than engaging in several tasks simultaneously, they are, in fact, shifting from one task to another to another in sequence. For example, they switch from their phone conversation to their homework assignment to a text message to a newly opened hyperlink on their computer screen and back again in the belief that they’re doing them simultaneously. But they’re not!

Research has uncovered two findings that are at odds with the conventional wisdom about so-called multitasking. A summary of studies examining multitasking describes how so-called multitasking is neither effective nor efficient. These findings have demonstrated that when your children shift focus from one task to another, that transition is neither fast nor smooth. Instead, there is a lag time during which the brain must yank itself from the initial task and then glom onto the new task. This shift, though it feels instantaneous, takes time. In fact, up to 40 percent more time than single tasking—especially for complex tasks.

A 2010 study offers perhaps the most surprising result: those who consider themselves to be great multitaskers are in fact the worst multitaskers. Those who rated themselves as chronic multitaskers made more mistakes, could remember fewer items, and took longer to complete a variety of focusing tasks analogous to multitasking than those self-rated as infrequent multitaskers. Other research has found that children perform worse on their homework if it is done while watching TV.

Another study reported that when students are working on their computers and have the television on, the level of distraction is startling. This research tracked eye movements and found that, during a half-hour period, students switched their attention between their computer and television 120 times. Amazingly, the participants in the study weren’t aware of how distracted they were, guessing that they looked back and forth only about 15 times in 30 minutes. Even more astonishing, the median length of time that they looked at television and their computer was two and six seconds, respectively. Given this level of distraction, you wonder how children ever learn or get anything done while studying.

Still another study found that a sample of middle-school, high-school, and university students lost focus every three minutes during a 15-minute study period on their computers. Not surprisingly, these distractions were directly related to the number of windows (e.g., Facebook, instant messaging, web pages) that students had open on their computers. Further analyses revealed that children’s ability to stay “on task” was highly predictive of their good grades. Additionally, the best predictors of poor grades were a tendency to multitask (i.e., switch frequently from task to task), the total number of hours each day children spent with technology, and whether they checked their Facebook pages at least once every 15 minutes. How widespread is this phenomenon? A survey found that 73 percent of young people can’t study without some form of technology and 38% can’t last ten minutes without checking their technology.

Understanding Multitasking

What does this mean for your children who are growing up in a world in which so-called multitasking is not only the norm, but also considered essential for success (and social acceptance)? Well, it means that your children don’t really multitask. Despite appearances, your simply can’t talk on the phone, read text messages, and watch YouTube videos all at the same time. In fact, when your children think they’re cruising along the information highway, the research I just described shows that they’re actually stepping on the gas then hitting the brakes, over and over again.

Consider how children used to do homework. They would have an assignment they needed to complete, so they would stop what they were doing, for example, watching television or playing with friends, sit at the desk in their room or at the dining room table, and focus on their homework. The most distraction children would experience might be from the home phone ringing or someone entering the room. The very primitiveness and infrequency of these distractions enabled children to stay focused on their homework for extended periods and get it done quickly and well. The result? Children were generally productive and successful.

Now let’s fast forward a generation to the present and children’s ability to immerse themselves in a single activity is becoming a dying art. New technology, in the form of mobile phones, email, texting, and, more specifically, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, keeps children in a constant state of distraction. The result is less attention paid to their homework, more time needed for completion, and, in all likelihood, your children not doing their assignment as well as they could have and receiving a lower grade for their distracted effort.

Single Tasking for Kids 3.0

Hopefully, you’re now convinced that so-called multitasking isn’t what it purports to be  and definitely doesn’t do your children any favors. So, the next thing to do is to show them (and perhaps yourself) how to “single task.” The solution is definitely not rocket science; it simply requires your children to make deliberate choices about what they wish to focus on and maintaining that singular focus until the task is completed. The bad news is that it can be difficult for children to break multitasking habits that may have already become ingrained. The good news is that, with some commitment and discipline on your part and theirs, your children can retrain those habits and, in a relatively short time and with the benefits clear, become comfortable and adept single taskers.

Single tasking starts with looking for ways to maximize your children’s ability to focus and minimize their potential distractions. Given that single tasking may involve some pretty significant changes in your children’s use of technology, I would encourage that you collaborate with them so they see the value in whatever changes you want them to implement.

Let’s use your children’s homework as the setting to help them shift from multitasking to single tasking. First, if they’re like most children, they probably do their homework in the living room or family room at your house. This means that there is a lot of distracting activity going on around them, such as you doing chores or their siblings coming and going. So, the first step is to find them a quiet space in which they won’t be interrupted. Your first thought might be their bedroom, but that probably offers your children even more distractions when they get tired, bored, or stuck. A den or study, if available, is a better option.

Second, help them to get comfortable and organized. They should ideally sit in a chair that’s comfortable, but too comfortable. Sofas and beds are just asking for daydreaming or napping. Their workspace should allow them easy access to whatever they need for their homework and be uncluttered with irrelevant stuff (clutter equals distraction).

Third, and most importantly, have them put away distracting technology. This means no mobile phones (the pings and buzzes from incoming messages are an immense distraction), no social media (if your children can’t do it themselves, there’s software that can give you control), no television (old school, but still a huge distraction), and only instrumental music (as noted earlier). You don’t want these changes to seem harsh to your children (and they will be if they’re accustomed to multitasking), so it’s best to begin these changes with a discussion and try to get buy-in from them. Also, allow them breaks in which they can, for example, check their text messages, update their Facebook page, or call a friend.

My experience has been that children often offer initial resistance to this shift from distracted multitasking to focused single tasking, particularly if they’re used to the former. If you can at least convince them to try it out for, say, two weeks, and perhaps even offer them incentives (research shows that bribery to initiate behavior change is effective), then you create the time to retrain their habits, allow them to become comfortable with the changes, and, most importantly, see its benefits. Your children will find that single tasking is effective, that is, they’re able to focus better, learn more, and do better in school. They’ll also find it more efficient, meaning they get more done in less time, which gives them more time to do things that they want, such as use the technology that was missing while they were single tasking

How involved in technology your children are is only half of the equation in its impact on them. The other half, of course, is the degree to which you are savvy in both your understanding and use of technology. The research indicating that children spend, on average, more than 7.5 hours a day in front of a screen (not including school and homework gives a persuasive sense of the typical young person’s relationship with technology. Your children may not be average; they may be more or less involved with technology.

So here’s an exercise for you. Estimate your children’s use and frequency with each of the forms of technology (i.e., TV, smartphone, video games, Internet). If your children are within the “normal” range of technology use you will probably be surprised, and maybe even shocked, at how much time they spend in the digital world.

So, how did your children develop their relationship with technology? In all likelihood, from your relationship with technology. You influence your children’s exposure to technology in two ways. First, whether consciously or otherwise, you determine the technology to which your children are exposed and the frequency of its use. You buy it for them, give them permission to use it, and provide them with the time and space for its use.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, you model the presence and use of technology in your own life. In doing so, you’re constantly send your children messages about the role that it should play in their lives. Think about how often you, for example, watch television, play video games, surf the Internet, or check your email, and you’ll probably see the kind of relationship that your children have or will develop with technology.

To help you better understand how tech savvy you are and your relationship with the connected world, take the exercise you just did for your children and apply it to yourself; in what form and with what frequency do you use technology? You may also be surprised at how much time you devote to technology.

Insights into the relationship that you and your children currently have with technology acts as a starting point from which you can use the information in my new book, Raising Generation Tech, to help you ensure that technology is a positive and healthy force in their lives.

The Future

My concern is not in technology itself; we cannot and should not try to slow or halt the inexorable march of progress. My interest is in our children’s relationship with that technology and my concern is in how technology will affect them. Will they be passive recipients—dare I say victims?—of technology who allow it to change their lives for better or worse without consideration? Or can we teach our children to be masters of technology and deliberately harness its tremendous value while minimizing its risks?

The answer to these questions will depend not only on the technology itself that is developed, but also on our exploration of how new technology will influence our children’s lives. Could anyone have predicted how the latest communication technology would change the world in which our children live? Well, in broad strokes, Marshall McLuhan did foresee the future more than 50 years ago. For the sake of future generations, we should continue to do so. Good questions to ask include:

1. What are our goals for this technology with our children?
2. How will it impact their intellectual, educational, physical, social, moral, and spiritual development?
3. How will it affect how our children use their time?
4. What benefit will it bring to our children?
5. What costs might arise from its use for our children?

The Law of Unintended Consequences

The Law of Unintended Consequences can be seen everywhere in our technological lives. Consider the Internet, smartphones, texting, Facebook, and Twitter. Here’s a satirical and fictitious quote attributed to twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey about his invention on theonion.com: “Twitter was intended to be a way for vacant, self-absorbed egotists to share their most banal and idiotic thoughts with anyone pathetic enough to read them. When I heard how Iranians were using my beloved creation for their own means—such as organizing a political movement and informing the outside world of the actions of a repressive regime—I couldn’t believe they’d ruined something so beautiful, simple, and absolutely pointless.”

Though clearly speaking with tongue firmly planted in cheek, who would have predicted that technology would play a key role in the election of a president or the promotion of freedom in countries such as China and Iran. At the same time, who would have thought that mobile phones would be used by terrorists and drug dealers to further their causes or that texting while driving would increase the risk of a car accident 23 times. It’s still far too early in the evolution of technology to know what its impact on children will be. Of course, we can never know a priori all of the unintended consequences of any new technology, but reducing their number could make the positive effects of new technology all the more beneficial and its negative effects more manageable and less destructive.

Let’s not forget that technology is not an end in itself, but rather a means to an end. What should that end be? Enhancing the quality of our children’s lives and fostering their fullest development, hopefully. Yet can we can say unequivocally that the latest technology is doing that? The answer is clearly no. As a result, it’s our responsibility as parents to ensure that the technology to which our children are exposed is well understood and used by them in ways that take full advantage of its many benefits while reducing its potential costs.

Yes, let us continue to nurture emerging technology to further leverage all that it has to offer. At the same time, the journey of progress should be guided by us, not lead by the technology itself. To do otherwise would be to take the risk that the technology will lead us a down a road of unintended consequences rather than our leading the technology down a road of our choosing. And our children will be the victims of our negligence.

This post is excerpted from Dr. Jim Taylor’s new parenting book, Raising Generation Tech: Preparing Your Children for a Media-fueled World.

What do smoke signals, drums, books, the telegraph, telephone, fax, mobile phones, and the Internet have in common? They have incrementally enabled us to connect with more people and access more information in more rapid, easy, and less costly ways. Each advancement changed our lives in ways manifest and subtle, direct and indirect, predictable and unexpected. This technology may be the most powerful tool in our lives today, with personal, informational, economic, social, cultural, and political impact.

What lies at the heart of this evolution is the way we perceive time, distance, and relationships. Each iteration of this technology has involved a shift in how we experience time and distance, and how each influences us. Time has shrunk (not literally, of course) as communication has become instantaneous. Distance also seems to have grown shorter (again, not literally) as we are able to connect with people in the far corners of the Earth. We are no longer bound by our physical limitations. Our relationships, because of the changes in time and distance, are no longer limited to people in our immediate surroundings. We are able to connect to, interact with, and build relationships with people as many and diverse as there are countries in the world.

These changes in how we look at time, distance, and relationships have produced a fundamental shift in our expectations about these three areas. These expectations, in turn, circle back to alter our relationship with technology. In previous generations before the Internet, mobile phones, text messaging, and Twitter, we simply knew we couldn’t be reached readily by anyone except in person or by landline telephone. The default was disconnectivity, so being disconnected was the norm. Our comfort zone was that of disconnectivity and any ability to connect beyond that was a bonus.

These days, the expectation is that we can be connected in numerous ways with anyone at any time instantaneously. Our default is connectivity, so being connected has become the norm and our comfort zone. Any break from that norm, whether a loss of Internet connection, the absence of a cellular signal, or simply forgetting our mobile phones, takes us out of that comfort zone and can create real feelings of loss and anxiety.

Children and Technology Today

“Shock” is the best word I can think of to describe my reaction when I read the results of the latest Kaiser Foundation survey of technology use by young people ages eight to eighteen. The 2009 study was a follow-up to an identical survey it conducted in 2005. In the previous survey, the researchers found that, on average, young people spent more than five-and-a-half hours a day interacting with technology unrelated to school. At the time, they assumed that given the busy schedules that young people have these days, an increase in their use of technology was impossible. How wrong they were!

The latest survey revealed that in 2009 this same age group spent more than seven-and-a-half hours a day involved with non-school-related technology. That’s an increase of more than one third in just four years! Speaking of shocked, the researchers themselves were astounded at the increase as, between school, homework, extracurricular activities, socializing, eating, sleeping, and family time, there simply didn’t seem to be enough time in a day. When multitasking was included, meaning the time when, for example, young people were watching YouTube videos, listening to music, and text messaging, the total time immersed in technology rose to ten-and-three-quarter hours. That didn’t even include the use of technology for school.

Let’s look at what specific technology consumed so much time: 1) television: 4:29 hours; computer: 2:31 hours; video games: 1:13 hours; reading: :28 hours (reading isn’t dead yet!); and movies: :25 hours. Of the time spent on a computer, social networking comprised 25 percent, playing games accounted for 19 percent, video sites counted for 16 percent, and Instant Messaging 13 percent. I find it surprising that, despite being oh-so 20^th century, the “idiot box” is still much beloved and much used by this generation. The survey revealed that 64 percent of families watched TV during meals, it was left on when no one was watching by 45 percent of families, and, remarkably, 71 percent of children had TVs in their bedrooms.

Other research has found that 97 percent of children ages 12 to 17 play video games. Contrary to the perception held by many that video games are a solitary pursuit, almost two-thirds play video games with family and friends, and more than a fourth play with people on the Internet. Here’s a eye-opening statistic: The average young person spends up to 10,000 hours playing video and online games by age 21. That’s about the same amount of time that they devote to their middle and high school years!

The research also reported that almost a quarter of teenagers access social media sites at least10 times a day, and over 50 percent use social media once a day. Additionally, 75 percent of teens own mobile phones (up from 45 percent in 2004), texting was a dominant form of communication for children and teens with girls, on average, sending 80 text messages a day and boys sending 30 a day. Fifty-nine percent of girls text their friends many times a day “just to say hello.” One girl sent more than 2,000 messages in one day. Additionally, 83 percent take photos and 64 percent share them with their friends using social media. Finally, 50% of the teenagers with driver’s licenses indicated that they sent and read text messages while they were driving.

The impact of technology on studying and grades was significant. Thirty-one percent of children said they multitasked while doing their homework most of the time and another quarter indicated they did 25 percent of the time. This despite a growing body of evidence that multitasking interferes with learning. Additionally, sixty-six percent of light users reported good grades and only 23% indicated fair or poor grades. With moderate use, the percentage with good grades stayed about the same (65 percent), but there was a substantial increase in the percentage of students with fair or poor grades (31 percent). The effect of heavy use of technology was even more pronounced, with only 51 percent of heavy users reporting good grades and 47 percent indicating fair or poor grades.

How much has technology taken over the lives of children and their parents’ priorities today? A study by AVG, the Internet security company, found that young children are more likely to master tech skills than life skills. For example, while 58 percent of two to five year olds can play a computer game, only 43 percent can ride a bike. Of children in that age group, 10 percent can use a smartphone application, while only nine percent can tie their shoes. Here’s a scary statistic: more young children can open a web browser than swim.

This post is excerpted from Dr. Jim Taylor’s new parenting book, Raising Generation Tech: Preparing Your Children for a Media-fueled World.

The Internet is a truly remarkable advancement in our ability to access information. Just about anything we could possibly want to know is now just a few keystrokes away. But , as with most technological innovations, for every benefit to our lives, there is a potential cost as well.

With the universe of information now available to anyone, I’m getting the sense that there are more and more people who think that, just because they have gained a great deal of information on an issue, they can call themselves experts. Unfortunately, these people don’t know what they don’t know. And therein lies the problem. This nearly infinite library of information is exposing the growing gap between information and wisdom (and all of the steps in between) that has serious implications for our country and the world at large in the arenas of, among others, education, politics, science, and media.

Information is certainly the starting point for meaning and value, but there are several steps that must be taken with that information for it to morph, ultimately, into what I believe is the most powerful use information has: wisdom.

Information is generally considered to be a collection of facts or data that originate from experience, scrutiny, instruction, or others. It may be factual or false, believed or rejected, short-lived or enduring. It is the most basic form of input and the foundation for our perceptions, judgments, attitudes, beliefs, decisions, and behavior. Information is gained, for example, when you read a newspaper article, observe an event, have an experience, or share a conversation. If you don’t dive below the surface, the information remains merely data that can be regurgitated, but nothing more.

The next stage as you dive deeper in the sea of wisdom is knowledge which involves a basic understanding of the information. Knowledge takes information and makes it useful. Think of a radiology technician as compared to a radiologist. The former may look at an MRI and see an abnormality, but the latter can know what it is.

When you dive even deeper, you arrive at insight which involves the ability to understand the very nature of the information and to look at it in complex and novel ways. Insight also relates to the capacity to organize, integrate, and synthesize the information for the purpose of creating, problem solving, and making decisions. Insight results from people answering the following questions: what does it mean, what are its implications, how does it impact you and the world, how does it fit into your life? Insight, for example, enables the aforementioned radiologist to not only see an anomaly in an MRI, but also to identify what it is, how it likely developed, its probable course, and the most appropriate treatment.

At the bottom of this sea is wisdom, which is the culmination of information, knowledge, and insight with one additional ingredient: experience. Wisdom that comes from experience enables you to take a piece of information and understand it not just in the here and now. Rather, wisdom allows it to be considered in the three-dimensional context of time, setting, and relationship to other information. The end result of information that evolves into wisdom is that it can be used to make reasoned judgments and sound decisions, and take appropriate action based on that information. Qualities often associated with wisdom, that are typically related to experience, include calm, humility, and a concern for others.

People can become experts based on exceptional information, knowledge, and insight (all three are required), but only years of in-depth consideration of information, and the maturity that only experience can provide, will result in the deepest form of authority that wisdom brings.

So why, as the title of my post alludes, can information be dangerous? In previous generations, most information wasn’t immediately available to most people and certainly not in the quantity that it is now. Most information accessible to people was provided in some sort of structured context, for example, school or work, in which it was taught by an expert, apportioned out incrementally, and usually involved a depth and breadth of exploration that enabled information to morph into knowledge and perhaps even into insight and wisdom. This traditional method of learning also ensured that people had a point of reference, namely, a true expert, for knowing how much they really knew; the teacher showed her students, for example, how much they had to learn to be truly versed in a subject.

The availability of information now found on the Internet presented without such rigid structure is a positive development in several ways. The Internet has democratized information allowing anyone with an Internet connection to learn about the world. People are now free to gain knowledge in their own way and toward their own ends. No longer is information meted out by a self-appointed gatekeeper.

At the same time, information doth not an expert make. The sheer volume of information that is readily available on the Internet without proper context or consideration of what real knowledge, insight, and wisdom is —quantity rarely equates with quantity—can lead people to believe they know what they’re talking about. Gaining information in the vacuum of the Internet can result in people who don’t know what they don’t know. It can also lead people to fall victim to a common cognitive bias known as the overconfidence effect in which people believe they know far more than they actually do.

But the Internet isn’t just about the input of information. It is also a powerful tool for the output of information and this is where information without knowledge, insight, or wisdom can be equally dangerous. As we all know, the Internet provides a potentially high soapbox with a very loud megaphone, offering any self-proclaimed authority with the means to broadcast their so-called expertise to the unsuspecting masses.

I’m certainly not advocating that access to information be restricted. Nor would I ever support infringing on our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. I suppose all I can hope for from this post is to warn people away from those who call themselves authorities based only on having information and to encourage them to seek out knowledge, insight, and wisdom before assuming the mantle of expert.

Yes, you heard me right. I asked whether you are capable of disconnecting…from your smartphone, PC, laptop, tablet, or mp3 player! I realize that is a shocking and perhaps heretical suggestion in a time when most people are connected 24/7. I’m not saying that you have to be thoroughly disconnected; that’s not realistic in today’s digital world.

My basic premise is this: Are you a master of technology in which you use it as a tool to enhance the quality of your life? Or are you addicted to your technology such that it actually hurts the quality of your life?

And when I say ‘addicted,’ I don’t just mean psychologically. There is a growing body of evidence indicating that overuse of technology has the same neurochemical effects—a shot of dopamine, our bodies’ way of rewarding us—as do addictions to alcohol, drugs, sex, and gambling.

Here’s a simple test:

• Do you check your phone before you get out of bed in the morning?
• Do you compulsively check your phone during the day?
• Are you in front of a screen or do you wear an earbud or headphones more often than not?
• Do you send and receive emails and text messages during meals, while socializing, or during exercise?
• Do you get anxious or depressed when you are disconnected?
• Do you panic if you can’t find your phone?
• Is your technology always within arm’s reach every moment of the day?
• Is checking your phone the last thing you do before you go to bed at night?

If you answered ‘yes’ to most or all these questions, you are probably addicted to your technology. And this addiction is probably not doing you any favors in your emotional, social, physical, or professional lives.

The question is: What are you going to do about it? As with any addiction, the longer you are connected, the more difficult it is to break the habit. You can either succumb to your technology addiction and do your best to minimize the harm it may cause you. Or you can take the first step toward recovery and say, “My name is so-and-so and I’m a technology addict.”. But that statement is pretty easy to make because talk is cheap and easy, but action isn’t.

Consider the many benefits that you would accrue by disconnecting from the ‘Matrix.’ You would have more free time that would be otherwise spent in front of a screen or wired to a gadget. You would spend more quality time with your family and friends, which, in the hectic life you probably lead, everyone would welcome. You would be able to have more experiences that are enriching and just plain fun. Your family and friends would also be less frustrated and angry with you because you wouldn’t be checking your email, text messages, Twitter feeds, Facebook updates, or the latest news while they were trying to have a conversation with you. The cumulative effect would be closer and stronger relationships with the people you care about most and deeper engagement in the activities that you enjoy most.

You would be less stressed because you would have more time to devote to your work or studies. You would be more active, which would give you more energy, you’d be in better shape, and you’d feel more physically attractive. You would sleep better because you wouldn’t be staying up late checking your Facebook pages, tweeting banalities, or playing online games.

A friend of mine who decided to break his addiction on technology told me that the benefits were immediate and substantial. He was much more creative because he was liberated from the technological box he was imprisoned in. He found other more rewarding ways to entertain himself. He was able to immerse himself deeply in tasks, whether working out, reading, or having a conversation with others. He also noticed his attention span grew longer as he limited his use of technology. The big thing was that, much to his surprise, he was just plain happier.

A mother I know decided to go cold turkey with her family’s technology because of the lack of real daily connection she had with her children. They established a six-month moratorium on technology in their home; no television, no computers, no mobile phones, no video-game consoles, no Internet (although her children were allowed access to screens at friends’ houses and at school). She was prepared for a rebellion from her children, but, surprisingly, there wasn’t one. After a short period of some complaining, her children actually embraced their family’s non-tech lifestyle.

Their family had meals together more frequently, talked more than ever before, and shared many wonderful activities together. Her children were faced with boredom and found ways to overcome it without the crutch of technology. They rediscovered things that they had once enjoyed doing, including reading, cooking, and playing a musical instrument. Even after the six-month vacation from technology ended, their family maintained many of the habits they had developed during the break. The older siblings rarely visit their Facebook pages, the son actually sold his video-game console so he could buy a saxophone, and the youngest continues to study in the library, where social networking isn’t allowed.

If cold turkey isn’t your cup of tea, you could gradually wean yourself off of technology. You can start with small limits, such as no technology at the dinner table or not bringing your phone with you when you exercise. As you become accustomed to the limits that you’ve set, you can slowly increase those boundaries. For example, you can progress to no Internet after 9 pm. You can then move to establishing no-tech days, such as on Saturdays, and no-tech socializing in which you turn off your phone’s ringer and notifications. Your goal is to have unnecessary technology (remember it can still be used as a tool for work, school, and daily functioning) be the exception rather than the rule in your life, something that is used but not needed and, ultimately, something that has no real influence over your lives.

Disconnecting may not be easy for you, depending on the extent to which technology is currently present in your lives. You’ve gotten accustomed to that shot of dopamine when your phone pings or vibrates. The idea of having to entertain yourself may seem pretty daunting. It’s likely that you will be tempted to sneak a peak at your phone or open you laptop even when there is really no compelling reason. That’s okay as you’re human and you’ll have relapses as you break your technology addiction. But, if you’re stay committed, after a short period of adjustment, I believe that you will find that the benefits that you gain from disconnecting regularly will far outweigh any costs that you may incur.

Karl Marx famously called religion the “opiate of the masses.” Well, to paraphrase Reggie Hammond, Eddie Murphy’s character in the film 48 Hours, “There’s a new opiate in town and its name is technology.” Yes, folks, everywhere you look these days, you see people “shooting up” their technological “drug” of choice, whether emails, text messages, Twitter or Facebook feeds, YouTube videos, streaming movies and TV shows, or playing app games on their smartphones.

Concerns about this “drug” have been gaining increasing attention in recent years. The words Internet and addiction have become conjoined and are now a part of our technology lexicon (usually by people who say it dismissively with a smirk as they ingest this drug through their favorite delivery system, whether computer, tablet, or smartphone). A 2010 survey found that 61% of Americans (the number is higher among young people) say they are addicted to the Internet. Another survey reported that “addicted” was the word most commonly used by people to describe their relationship to technology. Treatment programs for Internet addiction have been springing up all over the U.S. (this despite the fact that the American Psychiatric Association decided that it wasn’t worthy of being designated a formal type of mental illness).

The realization that technology is the new opiate of the masses reached a new high (pun intended) when the New York Times Magazine featured an article by Sam Anderson titled (chillingly), “The Hyperaddictive, Time-Sucking, Relationship-Busting, Mind-Crushing Power and Allure of Silly Digital Games.” In this article, Mr. Anderson connects the use of what he calls “stupid games” (I don’t think the quotation marks are necessary; the phrase speaks for itself) with terms such as addiction, OCD, and self-destruction. The game designer Frank Lantz likens these games to heroin and has the audacity to see both as “this transcendently beautiful and cerebral thing.” Not an apt metaphor in either case, I’m sure heroin addicts would agree.

His critique is compounded by what is commonly referred to as “gamification,” in which corporations are increasingly using technology as a means of “hooking” customers on their products.

Yet, somehow, Mr. Anderson concludes that these games are, well, just games, in other words, harmless fun.

The addictive quality of technology appears to go deeper than just psychological dependence. There is emerging evidence indicating that our interaction with technology produces the same neurochemical reaction—a burst of dopamine—as that from alcohol, drugs, sex, and gambling. Persistent exposure to technology-related cues, such as the vibration from a smartphone announcing the arrival of a new text message or the ping of an incoming tweet, can cause people to get caught in a vicious cycle of dopamine stimulation and deprivation. Moreover, the brevity of technology, such as 140-character text messages, lends itself to this vicious cycle because the information received isn’t completely satisfying, so people are driven to seek out more information for their next shot of dopamine. Not surprisingly, one study found that people had a harder time resisting the allure of social media than they did for sex, sleep, cigarettes, and alcohol.

Admittedly, unlike drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes, in which an addiction can easily be taken care of at Axis Residential Treatment, being hooked on technology doesn’t pose any immediate risks to users, so perhaps we should say, “No harm, no foul.” Heck, I’m not against some mindless entertainment. This is America and, as a free country, we all have a right to “pick our poison” and spend our time however we wish.

At the same time, there is a difference between temporary diversions, sustained obsessions, and uncontrollable addictions. Americans spend an average of five hours a day on line and young people more than 7.5 hours in front of a screen. Moreover, it has been estimated that people worldwide spend over three million hours playing Angry Birds every day. This is not just idle time either; this degree of absorption in technology incurs massive opportunity costs in terms of time, money, relationships, and meaningful experiences.

Mr. Anderson concludes with the notion that technology forces “us to make a series of interesting choices about what matters, moment to moment, in our lives.” Yet, from his description of his experience with technology as “hyper-addictive, time-sucking, relationship-busting, mind-crushing,” there doesn’t seem to be any choice at all; that’s called an addiction. And, if there are choices, for example, whether to set limits and use time more wisely, they don’t speak well of the hundreds of millions of people who decide that these games are a good use of their time.

There has been some egregiously bad decision making in the news lately, highlighted by the revelations around now-former Congressman Anthony Weiner’s ongoing sexually explicit Twitter conversations and photo sharing with six women. And just to show you that this post isn’t a partisan attack, let’s not forget the similarly bad decision making of also-recently-resigned Republican Congressman Christopher Lee’s Craigslist sexually suggestive and photographically explicit exchanges with a woman.

But how do you explain what is so obvious to everyone but themselves that what they did, in foresight or hindsight, is beyond-belief bad decision making? Narcissism? Plenty of that. Entitlement? Oh yeah. Delusion and denial? For sure. If you want to get really reductionistic, perhaps the pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain associated with so-called executive functioning (e.g., determining good from bad, planning, recognizing future consequences, predicting outcomes, and the ability to suppress socially inappropriate behavior), never fully developed in these paragons of ill-informed decision making. But these explanations just don’t do justice to the magnitude of their atrocious decision making.

There have been, I’m sure, hundreds, if not thousands, of blog posts written recently by actual and arm-chair shrinks that have attempted a forensic analysis of this very question. But I’m going to focus on how recent technology has aided and abetted the clearly irrational decision making that is part and parcel of being human (or at least of being a guy).

Let’s start by putting bad decisions in the proper historical context. Humans have been prone to poor decision making for as long as we have roamed the earth. Whether a mild act of embarrassing stupidity, such as putting one’s foot in one’s mouth with an untoward comment, or an act of career-ending idiocy, such as insulting the boss around the water cooler, bad decision making is a decidedly human attribute.

Why have we not evolved into better decision makers after so many eons of clearly ghastly decisions? Because we have yet to gain mastery over our primal urges or our unconscious needs and insecurities, both the primary drivers of poor decisions. Nor, as the psychological sciences have shown us, have we been able to avoid falling prey to the myriad of cognitive biases (e.g., selective attention, rationalization) that blur our lenses of reason. All of these forces conspire to prevent us from gathering sufficient information, analyzing it effectively, and using it exclusively to come to “rational” decisions (I doubt Mr. Spock ever sent inappropriate photos to Uhura through his communicator, though Kirk certainly did).

Before the recent technological advances, there was time to avoid acts of bad decision making. For example, while writing that angry and insult-laden letter to the girl who just rejected you, putting it into an envelope, addressing it, placing it in the mailbox, and waiting for the mail carrier to arrive, you had ample time to reconsider the suitability of that particular course of action. Due to the slowness of communication in those primitive days, we had the opportunity to, for example, calm down, reflect on our situation, consider the consequences, change our minds, prevent impulsive behavior and moral digressions, and avoid embarrassment, disgrace, or criminal charges. Plus, the “blast area” was limited by the still unsophisticated means of communicating those poor decisions to the world (think dynamite).

The technological advances of the last decade have made bad decision making easier and more immediately and widely consequential. Technology discourages thinking and deliberation, and promotes acting on our most base impulses, emotions, and needs, for example, anger, sadness, lust, or need for approval. We can make poor decisions more quickly, be caught in badly conceived acts more readily, and be more publicly humiliated before a far broader audience than ever before. Returning to my rejection example, that entire process of rejection (by a text message perhaps) and poorly thought-out reaction can now occur in a matter of seconds, with fewer than 140 characters, and can subsequently be broadcast to millions in a matter of minutes. Making horrendous decisions has never been more efficient. And the immediate and collateral damage can be staggering (think 500-megaton nuclear bomb).

With the emergence of the Web, email, mobile phones with cameras, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, gossip web sites, and online sleuths, we have newer, faster, and more creative ways to have our dreadful decision making illuminated for anyone with an Internet connection to see. Plus, we now leave digital fingerprints all over the actions that our poor decisions spawn. And there is an entire army of technophiles ready, willing, and able to immortalize those decisions for eternity (or until an electromagnetic pulse, a la Dark Angel, destroys the Internet’s infrastructure).

What do the many recent examples of uninspired decision making in this high-tech era have in common? Opportunity, ease, speed, reach, and irreversibility. I don’t think that even reputation.com can ever scrub cyberspace sufficiently to remove this stain (pun intended) from Mr. Weiner’s life (though Eliot Spitzer, who engaged in actual criminal acts, has, contrary to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s assertion, had a pretty good second act). And everyone who has any ability to make money for others, for example, Tiger Woods, with his mind-boggling digital trail of serial infidelity, will probably get a second chance.

Are there lessons to be learned from these technology-exposed horrible decisions, most recently, those of Mr. Weiner? Of course. Will those lessons be learned by those most in need of learning them? Of course not. Why? Because there is no pre-frontal cortex below the belts of men.

Is Technology Stealing Our (Self) Identities?

Our self-identities, that is, how we define and see ourselves as unique individuals, play a vital role in who we are and the direction that our lives take. The self-identity encompasses the totality of knowledge and understanding that we gain about ourselves as we develop including our personalities, aptitudes and capabilities, intellectual and physical attributes, interests, and relationships.

We gain our self-identities in two ways. First, as we develop self-awareness, we observe and evaluate our thoughts, feelings, and behavior based on past experience, current needs, and future goals. We also look outward to the world in which we live, for example, social, academic, and physical, for feedback that also shapes our self-identities. Because we are fundamentally social beings and an essential part of our development involves finding our place in the social and cultural context in which we live, feedback from that social world plays a significant role in the evolution of our self-identities.

Because our social worlds have expanded dramatically in the last decade, from families, friends, neighborhoods, and schools to an almost-limitless universe of people due to the proliferation of the Internet and social media, it isn’t difficult to see how external forces may now be gaining a disproportionate influence over our self-identities compared to previous generations. And these social influences, accelerated by the recent explosion of technology, may be shaping our self-identities in ways in which most of us aren’t the least bit aware.

One of the most powerful ways in which technology is altering self-identity is through the shift from being internally to externally driven. Yes, as I just described, social factors have always had an impact on the formation of self-identity, but they had been, up until recently, partners of sorts with our own internal contributors to self-identity. But now the sheer ubiquity and force of the latest technological advances has taken that influence and turned its volume up to a deafening roar.

In previous generations, most of the social forces that influenced our self-identities were positive; parents, peers, schools, communities, extracurricular activities, even the media sent mostly healthy messages about who we were and how we should perceive ourselves. Yes, there were bad influences, but they were far outweighed by those that were beneficial. These forces acted mostly as a mirror reflecting back on us what we saw in ourselves, resulting in affirmation rather than change in our self-identities.

But now, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme in a social world where the profit motive rules and healthy influences are mostly drowned out by the cacophony of the latest technology. The self-identities of this generation of young people and, in fact, anyone who is deeply immersed in popular culture and media, are now shaped by external forces in two ways.

First, popular culture, through both “old-school” and the latest media, no longer holds a mirror to reflect our self-identities. Nor does it provide feedback about how grounded our self-identities are in the reality of our lives. Instead, popular culture manufactures “portraits” of who it wants us to be. Tapping into our most basic needs to feel good about themselves, accepted, and attractive, popular culture tells us what we should believe about ourselves. The problem is that the self-identity that is shaped by popular culture serves its own best interests rather than what is best for us. Additionally, self-identity is no longer self-identity, meaning derived from the self, but rather is an identity projected onto us by popular culture and in no way an accurate reflection of who we really are.

Second, social media has caused us to shift away from expressing our self-identities and toward constructing facades based on the answers to these questions, “How will others look at me?” and “How can I ensure that others view me positively?” The goal for many now in their use of social media becomes how they can curry acceptance, popularity, status, and, by extension, self-esteem through their profiles and postings. Self-awareness and self-expression give way to impression management and self-promotion. As the writer Christine Rosen observed in her 2007 article in The New Atlantis, “Does this technology, with its constant demands to collect (friends and status), and perform (by marketing ourselves), in some ways undermine our ability to attain what it promises—a surer sense of who we are and where we belong? The Delphic oracle’s guidance was know thyself. Today, in the world of online social networks, the oracle’s advice might be show thyself.”

We come to see our identities as those we would like to have or that we want people to see rather than who we really are. We then feel compelled to promote and market these identities through social media. The line between person and persona, private and public self become blurred or erased completely and the so-called self-identity becomes a means of our acceptance and status.

Paradoxically, in striving for approval by our social world writ large through technology and in seeking uniqueness that enables us to stand out in the densely populated cyber world, we unwittingly sacrifice our true self-identities and shape our identities to conform to what the digital world views as acceptable identity. And, in doing so, we relinquish the specialness that we hold so dear. Notes Christine Rosen, “Indeed, this is one of the characteristics of MySpace [obviously before Facebook took off]…it is an overwhelmingly dull sea of monotonous uniqueness, of conventional individuality, of distinctive sameness.”

There are two really sad things about this unintended consequence of the use of these emerging technologies. First, most people have no idea of the dramatic changes that are occurring slowly yet inexorably within them (just as a frog doesn’t sense it is going to die if placed in water that is heated slowly). Second, this shift in identity, from internally derived to externally driven, can’t be good for us as (formerly unique?) individuals nor for us as a (formerly vital?) society.