Technology and Stress

11/10/2005

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. Crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Robert F. Kennedy

Technology and Stress

Writing in a July 2001 issue of Stress News, published by the International Stress Management Association, John Mueller identifies 7 factors of our high tech world that contribute to higher levels of stress -- despite the belief that technology was supposed to make our jobs and lives so much easier. These include:

• Technology has been sold as the Holy Grail for increased productivity.

• Technology is designed by and for early adopters.

• Technology is seldom designed to solve actual workplace problems.

• Technology doesn't do what it is supposed to do.

So what hope do we have as technology creeps into more aspects of our work and home lives with each passing day? Mueller, an experimental psychologist, offers 16 suggestions for managing technology and in doing so better managing your stress. To put up a “psychological firewall” he recommends that you:

• Stop trying to multi-task and work 24/7.

• Establish some boundaries between work and home.

• Don't be on call all the time.

• Don't contact someone else immediately just because you can.

• Let the technology do the repetition and detail work.

• Cultivate tech-savvy habits.

Contributed by Chip Donohue.

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