{"id":58,"date":"2010-08-31T11:37:13","date_gmt":"2010-08-31T11:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/08\/digital-boundaries-setting-limits-for-facebook-twitter-and-email.html"},"modified":"2010-08-31T11:37:13","modified_gmt":"2010-08-31T11:37:13","slug":"digital-boundaries-setting-limits-for-facebook-twitter-and-email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/08\/digital-boundaries-setting-limits-for-facebook-twitter-and-email.html","title":{"rendered":"The In-Box That Ate Manhattan: Setting Limits for Facebook, Twitter, and Email"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"the+shallows.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/83\/import\/the%2Bshallows.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt\" height=\"300\" width=\"300\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>No, I haven&#8217;t yet read <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theshallowsbook.com\/nicholascarr\/The_Shallows.html\">The Shallows<\/a><\/i>, the recent non-fiction book that everyone&#8217;s talking about. It claims that the more time we spend on the Internet, the more shallow and ignorant we become. I wouldn&#8217;t know. I&#8217;ve been too busy catching up with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/\">Facebook<\/a> to digest the book&#8217;s central argument.<\/p>\n<p>Last night our family broke its rule about &#8220;no cell phones at the table&#8221; after my husband and daughter raved about a new game called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fruitninja.com\/\">Fruit Ninja <\/a>that they&#8217;d downloaded onto his iPhone. Of course they had to show me the game right that minute. Of course I got sucked into it. And of course the latter half of our mealtime was spent passing the phone around as we took turns playing the game.<\/p>\n<p>That was great fun, but I don&#8217;t want to make a habit out of it. According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/media-use-by-8-18-year-olds\">the Kaiser Family Foundation<\/a>, the average 8-18 year old spends 10 hours and 45 minutes in front of a computer screen, TV, or cell phone. That&#8217;s crazy!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"59956502_27294bf761.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/83\/import\/59956502_27294bf761.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0pt 0pt 20px 20px\" height=\"187\" width=\"250\" \/><\/span>&#8220;In 2\/3 of households, TVs are on during meals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In 75% of households, TVs are on when no one is watching them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>More than 70% of kids have TVs in their bedrooms.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But it&#8217;s not just my daughter&#8217;s life I&#8217;m worried about; it&#8217;s mine. Over the last two years I&#8217;ve noticed digital media encroaching on my life, work, and friendships. I know <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/07\/how-do-you-unplug-hamlets-blackberry-and-my-weekly-digital-sabbath.html\">I&#8217;ve blogged about this before<\/a> on <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/07\/how-do-you-unplug-hamlets-blackberry-and-my-weekly-digital-sabbath.html\">Flunking Sainthood<\/a>, but at the risk of sounding like a broken record I&#8217;m going to make some promises to myself about digital media, and I want you to hold me accountable. <\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"2959912279_8446aa1abd.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/83\/import\/2959912279_8446aa1abd.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt\" height=\"167\" width=\"249\" \/><\/span>1. <b>I&#8217;m going to be more vigilant about keeping the computer completely off from Saturday night until Monday morning.<\/b> I know that&#8217;s not possible every week, but I&#8217;m going to redouble my efforts at having a computer-free digital Sabbath. (I still get to watch <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/masterpiece\/mystery\/index.html\">Masterpiece Mystery<\/a><\/i>, on TV, however. There are certain standards.)<\/li>\n<li><b>I&#8217;m going to check email no more than five times a day.<\/b> Email has become a tyranny with me; I want to give people a quick response, but then I find I have neglected attention to more long-term projects. According to <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.nutshellmail.com\/2010\/04\/16\/your-digital-life-should-have-boundaries\/\">Nutshellmail.com<\/a>, &#8220;a recent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/news\/biztech\/youve-got-interruptions\/2008\/09\/08\/1220857455459.html\">study<\/a><br \/>\nsuggested that the average user lost 8.5 hours per week transitioning<br \/>\nbetween email and their previous task.&nbsp; Email productivity experts<br \/>\nsuggest checking your in-box in bulk 1-3 times a day at preset times.&#8221; 1-3 times a day is not going to happen, but 5 times a day is doable and, I think, necessary.<\/li>\n<li><b>I&#8217;m going for the Kindle and not the iPad.<\/b> Thanks to everybody who weighed in last week about the merits of various e-readers. A couple of people commented that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.apple.com\/ipad\/\">iPad<\/a>, while amazing, is almost <i>too<\/i> distracting for reading purposes, because it is equipped to do so many other things. I found that a helpful critique and am leaning toward <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Kindle-Wireless-Reader-3G-Wifi-Graphite\/dp\/B002FQJT3Q\">one of the newer Kindles<\/a> because I want to use it for reading without getting distracted (yet again) by email, Facebook, or my 4,967th game of Scrabble. I have too many choices in life as it is.<\/li>\n<li><b>I&#8217;m going to set time limits for Facebook and Twitter. <\/b>Since I use these for work as well as for keeping up with friends, they&#8217;ve mushroomed into an increasingly large part of my day. I&#8217;m going to aim for one hour a day maximum for both forms of social media&#8230;.Uh, pray for me. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Hold me to this, people! And tell me: what boundaries, if any, do you set about computer and cell phone usage in your families?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No, I haven&#8217;t yet read The Shallows, the recent non-fiction book that everyone&#8217;s talking about. It claims that the more time we spend on the Internet, the more shallow and ignorant we become. I wouldn&#8217;t know. I&#8217;ve been too busy catching up with Facebook to digest the book&#8217;s central argument. Last night our family broke&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-commentary"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The In-Box That Ate Manhattan: Setting Limits for Facebook, Twitter, and Email - Flunking Sainthood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/08\/digital-boundaries-setting-limits-for-facebook-twitter-and-email.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The In-Box That Ate Manhattan: Setting Limits for Facebook, Twitter, and Email - Flunking Sainthood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"No, I haven&#8217;t yet read The Shallows, the recent non-fiction book that everyone&#8217;s talking about. It claims that the more time we spend on the Internet, the more shallow and ignorant we become. I wouldn&#8217;t know. I&#8217;ve been too busy catching up with Facebook to digest the book&#8217;s central argument. Last night our family broke&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/08\/digital-boundaries-setting-limits-for-facebook-twitter-and-email.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Flunking Sainthood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-31T11:37:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/files\/import\/the%2Bshallows.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jana Riess\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The In-Box That Ate Manhattan: Setting Limits for Facebook, Twitter, and Email - Flunking Sainthood","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2010\/08\/digital-boundaries-setting-limits-for-facebook-twitter-and-email.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The In-Box That Ate Manhattan: Setting Limits for Facebook, Twitter, and Email - Flunking Sainthood","og_description":"No, I haven&#8217;t yet read The Shallows, the recent non-fiction book that everyone&#8217;s talking about. It claims that the more time we spend on the Internet, the more shallow and ignorant we become. I wouldn&#8217;t know. I&#8217;ve been too busy catching up with Facebook to digest the book&#8217;s central argument. 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