Your "Technology Bill of Rights"

Technology puts independent workers in the driver's seat, so to speak. But it can create such dependency, say my pals, Larry Rosen and Michelle Weil, that it may even lead to questioning one's own creativity and capabilities. To keep technology in it's proper perspective, they say to declare your independence.

1. I am the boss, not my technology.
2. Technology is available to help me express my creativity.
3. I decide when to use the tools technology provides.
4. I have the right to choose what technology to use and what to put aside.
5. I can use technology to stay connected, informed, and productive – my way.

6. Technology offers a world of information. I get to choose what information is important to me.
7. Technology will have problems, but I will be prepared to handle them.
8. Technology can work 24-hour days, but I can choose when to begin and when to stop working.
9. Technology never needs to rest, but I do.
10. I can work successfully by enforcing my boundary needs.

Source: Technostress by Larry Rosen Ph.D. and Michelle Weil PhD.

Draining Your Brain

David Brook, writing in the New York Times, offers a brilliant article called "The Outsourced Brain," wherein he describes how today's technology is aiding some people in abdicating from everyday decisions, and worse, even from basic thinking.

"The gurus seek bliss amidst mountaintop solitude and serenity in the meditative trance," he writes, "but I, grasshopper, have achieved the oneness with the universe that is known as pure externalization.

"I have melded my mind with the heavens, communed with the universal consciousness, and experienced the inner calm that externalization brings, and it all started because I bought a car with a G.P.S."

"Like many men, I quickly established a romantic attachment to my G.P.S. I found comfort in her tranquil and slightly Anglophilic voice. I felt warm and safe following her thin blue line. More than once I experienced her mercy, for each of my transgressions would be greeted by nothing worse than a gentle, Make a U-turn if possible.”

"After a few weeks, it occurred to me that I could no longer get anywhere without her. Any trip slightly out of the ordinary had me typing the address into her system and then blissfully following her satellite-fed commands. I found that I was quickly shedding all vestiges of geographic knowledge."