LEARN

He spent six months alone in a cave underground. Darkness. Bats. And a whole lot of guano! This modern caveman was also a product and victim of technology…something we can all relate to. Thankfully, digital expert Amy Blankson, the Luddites, and an accidental invention all teach us how to find happiness with our tools.

ASK

How has your repeated use of the internet influenced the way you think? How has it helped? Where has it hurt?

DO

Turn off your notifications. That’s it.

Turn off Slack notifications, even social media alerts. Those disruptive culprits interrupt your daily life and flow of thought. Don’t worry, you’ll still get to them. Amy told me that it’s best to check them in batches. Because when you do, you’ll be the one calling the shots. You’re the one deciding when you’ll engage with the content. You intentionally use the technology, as opposed to letting the technology use you, often throwing you into the mud of multi-tasking.

Sources:

Beck, Julie. 2015. “That Time When People Lived Alone in Caves for Science.” The Atlantic. November 9, 2015. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/11/the-caves-of-forgotten-time/414894/.

Blankson, Amy. 2017. The Future of Happiness: 5 Modern Strategies for Balancing Productivity and Well-Being in the Digital Era. BenBella Books, Inc.

Cooking with a Microwave Oven – Clip 18514. 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y90hCRk-XA.

“Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow.” 2018. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781912453207.

Ferdman, Roberto A. 2014a. “America’s 60-Year Love Affair with Frozen TV Dinners Is over.” Quartz. March 13, 2014. https://qz.com/187433/americas-60-year-love-affair-with-frozen-tv-dinners-is-over/.

———. 2014b. “The Slow Death of the Microwave.” Quartz. March 19, 2014. https://qz.com/187743/the-slow-death-of-the-microwave/.

“Food Summit Day One: Is R&D (research & Development) Being Replaced by R&A (research & Acquisition)?” 2014. April 9, 2014. https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2014/04/09/Food-Technology-Innovation-Summit-2014-day-one.

Jaffe, James Alan. 2006. “Writings of the Luddites (review).” Technology and Culture. https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2006.0074.

Sarah Klein, Health.com. 2011. “8 Reasons to Make Time for Family Dinner.” CNN. October 25, 2011. https://www.cnn.com/2011/10/25/living/family-dinner-h/index.html.

Schmelzer, Mary. 2019. “Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation, Written by Alan Burdick.” KronoScope. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685241-12341435.

“Six Months Alone in Midnight Cave by James M Deem.” n.d. Accessed July 22, 2020. https://jamesmdeem.com/stories.cave.midnightcave.html.

Small, Gary W., Teena D. Moody, Prabha Siddarth, and Susan Y. Bookheimer. 2009. “Your Brain on Google: Patterns of Cerebral Activation during Internet Searching.” The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry: Official Journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry 17 (2): 116–26.

“The History of the ‘Boo-Dah-Ling’ Sound.” n.d. Accessed September 25, 2020. http://jacklinstudios.com/docs/making-of-158-marimba.html.

“The Importance of Family Dinners.” 2003. PsycEXTRA Dataset. https://doi.org/10.1037/e541102013-001.

Volume 34, No. 1 Quarterly Journal of the Spencer Historical and Genealogical Society, Inc. February 2010