Is Your Technology Managing You?

Are you managing your technology tools or are they managing you?

You probably remember from your school days reading about Pavlov's dogs.  Pavlov ran experiments showing that introducing a certain stimulus to dogs could bring about a certain behavior in expectation of a reward (food in their case).  What he did was ring a bell (among other stimuli) and then measured the amount of saliva the dogs produced thinking about the food they were going to receive after the ringing of the bell.

The upshot was he showed introducing a stimulus brought about a conditioned reflex that affected behavior.

Now, fast forward 120 years - today's version of this experiment -

The stimulus - the ringing or vibrating of a cell phone (mobile device)

The conditioned reflex - answering the phone or reading the e-mail or text message (no matter what we are doing, who we are with)

The behavior - a slave to our cell phones (technology tool) 

Now ask yourself the first question - are you managing your technology tools or are they managing you?

My next post will go over some suggestions on "How to Manage Your Technology Tools".