Tech Stress

How Technology is Hijacking Our Lives, Strategies for Coping, and Pragmatic Ergonomics

An evolutionary approach to re-envisioning our relationship with technology–and reclaiming health, happiness, and sanity in a plugged-in world

Evolution shapes behaviors–and as a species, we’ve evolved to be drawn to the instant gratification, constant connectivity, and shiny lights, beeps, and sounds of our ever-present smartphones, laptops, and other devices. In earlier eras, these hardwired evolutionary patterns may have set us up for success, but today they confuse our instincts, leaving us vulnerable and stressed out from fractured attention, missed sleep, skipped meals, and all-over aches and pains.

So how can we avoid the evolutionary pitfalls programmed into modern technology use? Erik Peper, Richard Harvey, and Nancy Faass offer real, practical tools to avoid the evolutionary traps that trip us up, helping us reduce physical strain, prevent sore muscles, combat brain drain, and correct poor posture. They first describe some of the problems associated with technology overuse, then offer strategies for mitigating technological stress, like how to:

Increase patience and calm while working at a computer
Improve communication with spouses, children, and co-workers during digital device usage
Arrange your work environment to best match your individual needs
Reduce hypervigilance and excessive cortisol production while using digital devices
Limit the bracing and freezing responses under stress that lead to ‘blanking out’ or not remembering details
Cultivate a sense of safety under conditions of workplace threat

USEFUL, PRACTICAL TIPS: The hacks in Tech Stress are straightforward, accessible, and approachable, and presented in an easy-to-learn way. By integrating only a few of them, readers can still reap huge benefits in attention, their relationships, and overall quality of life.

UNIQUE EVOLUTIONARY APPROACH: Positioning the ill effects of technology as “evolutionary traps,” the authors present an interesting and fresh approach to understanding why we fall into them–and how we can best get ourselves back out. Informed by behavioral, neuro-, and social science, Tech Stress takes a deeper look at why and how we’re affected by our tech, offering science-backed ways to help.