Do you

* spend hours surfing the Web, answering e-mails, instant messaging, or blogging?
* take calls on your cell phone no matter where you are or who you’re with?
* listen to tunes or podcasts on your audio player from breakfast to bedtime?

If you answered yes to at least one of these questions but often feel wired, frustrated, exhausted, or overwhelmed, you may be suffering from “infowhelm.” I’ve coined this term to describe being overwhelmed by the abundance of information and stimulation in our constantly busy and plugged-in lives.

It’s no surprise that many people feel infowhelmed today. Marketing expert Dave Lakhani reports that we receive more mental and visual stimulation in one day than our great-grandparents in 1900 absorbed in a year. The constant demands on our attention by advertising, music, movies, the Internet, and other people have increased dramatically since the 1950s, while TV has also evolved from a three-channel world to a 200-channel universe.

Time Magazine’s 2006 “Mind-Body Issue” (January 16, 2006) notes that e-mail and cell phones may make people more productive, but they also “drive us to distraction.” We spend too much time “frazzing” (doing frantic, inefficient multitasking with the delusion that we’re getting things done) and “screen sucking” (wasting time online) according to psychiatrist and ADD expert Edward Hallowell, author of CrazyBusy and Driven to Distraction. Many people are also addicted to “infosnacking”—randomly nibbling bytes of news, e-mails, and Web information throughout the day—which was 2005’s Word of the Year per Webster’s New World College Dictionary.

I realized that I suffer from infowhelm after I avoided checking my e-mail for nearly two weeks. When I finally and reluctantly went online, it took a whole day to wade through them. My experience was recently echoed by law professor Rosa Brooks in her LA Times op-ed essay about her love-hate relationship with e-mail (January 13, 2006). Rosa once thought that e-mail would “bring absent friends closer and enable us all to communicate so much more efficiently, quickly and deeply,” but she’s now inundated with over 200 e-mails a day, mostly spam and lawyer jokes sent by friends who incorrectly think that she enjoys them.

In addition to answering e-mails only when I feel like it, I try to control the tsunami of information by choosing to keep my cell phone off unless I’m expecting an urgent call. Cell phones are great for emergencies and while traveling, but interaction by computer and cell phone has replaced the art of talking with people face-to-face. Our conversation styles have become fast and furious as people rush around chatting on their cells, but they seem unaware that others don’t enjoy listening to their one-sided conversations. This is also true of iPod™ addicts who ignore the people around them while listening to their favorite tunes.

Our attention spans have also diminished due to online chats and the preference for brief e-mails. In Driven to Distraction Hallowell points out that in 1994 Americans were beginning to exhibit ADT, or attention deficit trait. This is similar to ADD but only makes people frantic in certain situations or places—like at the office for stressed-out corporate executives or at home for exhausted stay-at-home moms. Being interrupted by the demands of others or by high-tech devices also drains our adrenaline and locks us into a state of fight or flight.

Our obsession with high-tech toys and tools seems to have unbalanced our lives instead of giving us more freedom and time to enjoy ourselves. By plugging in we’ve lost touch with the natural world of our slower-paced but less-overwhelmed ancestors. We’re now paying the price of choosing “high tech” over “high touch” in deeper levels of anxiety and a continual sense of being off-balance. By listening primarily to loud sounds through our iPods and cell phones we’ve stopped hearing the natural symphony of wind, birds, and crickets. By focusing on TV, computers, and cell phone screens we’ve stopped gazing out windows to watch the world around us or the clouds drifting by.

Unfortunately, our sense of infowhelm is likely to increase as commercials are beamed to our iPods and cell phones in the near future. Then, we won’t even be able to turn off the flood of unwanted messages . . . unless we unplug!

I don’t advocate trashing our computers or tossing our cell phones away forever, but I do urge you to seek the right balance of high tech and high touch for your life before it becomes even harder to stop and smell the roses or gaze at the moon.

The concept of high tech/high touch was originally posed by author and researcher John Naisbitt in his 1982 best seller Megatrends. According to a Publishers' Weekly review, “Naisbitt sees Americans trapped in what he calls a ‘Technology Intoxication Zone,’ and he urges people to unplug their laptops long enough to rediscover the simplicity of starry nights and snowfalls, and remember what it means to be human.” I emphatically agree. As a life balance coach, I invite you to unplug long enough to regain your balance by recharging drained energy at least once a week.

How? Try spending face time with people you care about. If you can’t get together in person, at least call them instead of e-mailing—even if you must use your cell phone. Listen to their voices, and let them hear yours. You can also balance infowhelm by tuning in to nature. Walk on the beach, or take a hike in the woods. Notice the moon’s phases each month as it evolves from new to full and back again. Treat the new moon as a time of new beginnings; at the full moon, stop and review how far you’ve come since the last new moon, then reflect on what you want to accomplish before the next one.

Also, tune in to the earth’s seasons plus the four elements of earth, air, water, and fire. We forget that the natural energy of the world and our lives flows in cycles and that each natural element helps balance the others. Our energy flow is not just mental or “on” all the time like the Internet. Humans weren’t designed to be plugged in to machines 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We need regular downtime to rejuvenate, relax, and recharge.

I’ve found that tuning in to natural energy patterns is especially effective as an antidote for infowhelm. When we unplug for a while, we can remember how to move at a more peaceful pace—to communicate with more emotional depth and to pay attention to what we see and feel. Imagine how energizing, balanced, and peaceful our lives can be if we all consciously tune in to each other and the world around us again!

** This article is one of 101 great articles that were published in 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life. To get complete details on “101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life”, visit http://www.selfgrowth.com/greatways.html

Author's Bio: 

Barbara Schiffman is a life balance and personal evolution coach in Burbank, California. As an author, speaker, publisher, Hollywood script consultant, life and career breakthrough trainer, wife, and mother, Barbara’s a first-hand life balance expert. She brings fresh perspectives to living in tune with the universe, and her EvoLuminus Coaching tele-classes, workshops, and guided meditation CD Kits include “New Moon. New Beginnings,” “Life Energy Tune-Up,” and “The EnergiFlow Process.” Barbara’s also published in Inspiration to Realization, an anthology of women’s wisdom. For information, call (818) 846–3043 or (800) 306–8290, e-mail fullspectrum@charter.net, or visit http://www.barbaraschiffman.com.