technology | A healthier relationship

Concerned about how much technology is dominating your daily life? Follow this advice from therapist Cosette Rae, researcher Jason Northrup and therapist John O’Neill.

Bring back family dinners: No technology allowed. Just family, food and conversation. Try instilling this rule one night a week or at every dinner. Turning off phones and other technology helps family members dodge what counselor John O’Neill refers to as “together alone” — a situation where we’re surrounded by people, but everyone is so engaged in their technology that they might as well be alone.

Disconnect: Set aside some time every week — say, Saturday afternoons — to completely disengage from technology. Go for a walk, knit, play cards with a friend. Pull the plug and explore the world around you.

Keep work at work: Staying connected with work is important, but don’t let it consume you. If your job requires you to be reached by phone or email 24/7, set other rules that can help keep boundaries. For example, instead of checking your email on your phone every 10 minutes, set a notification that will alert you to a new message.

Know your weakness: Maybe you’re an obsessive texter or an avid social-media user. Pinpointing your Achilles’ heel will help you acknowledge which areas of your tech life you need to scale back.

Turn the phone off at night: Research shows that sleeping with our phones right next to us — under our pillows, clutched in our hands as a replacement teddy bear — can actually disrupt our sleep patterns.