Is it Time to Keep a Kazoo Next to Your Computer?

It turns out humming offers many health benefits. The benefits include: relief from stress and anxiety, decrease in heart rate, increase in lymphatic circulation, increase in nasal nitric oxide, and vagus nerve stimulation. A few months ago, I was on a call with one of my favorite neuroscientists. I had been reviewing a set ofContinue reading “Is it Time to Keep a Kazoo Next to Your Computer?”

Screen Apnea: Our Bodies on Personal Technologies

Linda Stone spoke with NPR’s Manoush Zomorodi on a recent episode of Zomorodi’s podcast, Body Electric. Stone coined the terms, “Screen Apnea” and “Email Apnea” in 2008, after noticing she was holding her breath or shallow breathing while working on personal technologies. She looked around, and noticed most people were doing what she was doing:Continue reading “Screen Apnea: Our Bodies on Personal Technologies”

NPR’s The Body Electric Investigates How Personal Technologies Impact Our Bodies

In one of the best series yet on technology and how our bodies and minds are taxed by our current habits, Manoush Zomorodi, interviews a variety of experts. Manoush kicks off the series with a challenge to NPR listeners to join a Columbia University/NPR study. Participants are tasked with getting up and moving for fiveContinue reading “NPR’s The Body Electric Investigates How Personal Technologies Impact Our Bodies”

Screen Apnea in the NYTimes

In 2007, I made some observations and named what I was seeing in a 2008 Huffington Post article. I described a phenomenon I initially called email apnea, and later referred to, interchangeably as email apnea or screen apnea. This followed observations and research I’d done in the 1990’s on attention, when I coined the phrase,Continue reading “Screen Apnea in the NYTimes”

Cute Cats Redux

Ethan Zuckerman, who is wise, kind, and brilliant, posits that people have a preference for using the Internet for banal activities, like surfing for “cute cats.”  It seems true that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and the like, are, indeed, rife with cute cats.  I’m beginning to believe there is a deep explanation for that.  I’mContinue reading “Cute Cats Redux”

A Badass Musician & a Sixth Degree Aikido Black Belt Advise on Email Apnea

Watching Cameron Carpenter play the organ is a transcendant experience. It’s as if he’s “lit.” The organ just sits there, and Carpenter’s body exudes a powerful energy. Most of us, when we interact with digital technologies, “merge” our energies with the device, exhausting ourselves. Experienced musicians don’t do this. In the evolution of our relationship with digital devices, we have a lot to learn from experienced musicians.