Tag: Digital Distractions

Screens in the Bedroom: Good, Bad, Indifferent, or the End of Humanity as We Know It?

On By ChristineIn My writing4 Comments

 

silver macbook on bed
Photo by Andrew Neel on Pexels.com

Let’s talk about your bedroom for a minute. Do you use phones or other screens in yours? If you do, does using technology in your bedroom affect your sleep? Your focus? Do you know for sure?

I have a Kindle, but I leave my phone in another room. I know if I have a screen nearby, and I’m trying to sleep, I’ll end up thinking about work. For me, the mere presence of a screen puts in me in work mode.

Recently, I read some research about what happens when kids/tweens have screens in their rooms. It turns out that using screens in the bedroom is far worse (in terms of cognitive effects) than using screens elsewhere. So I wrote an article about that research for Your Teen Magazine, a leading source of trusted advice for parents raising tweens and teens.

There’s no paywall, and you can read it here if you like.

Let me know what your household practices are for digital devices. In a world of digital distraction, we’re all trying to find ways to balance the addictive pull of technology and the need for silence. What’s your last refuge for silence?

Digital Distractions Will Keep You from Writing

On By ChristineIn My writing5 Comments

If you want to publish in magazines and/or with mainstream publishers, you have to do one thing first: write

But finding time and energy to write is really hard when there are just so many easy and accessible distractions.

Exhibit A: I sat down to write this post and proceeded to first do the following things:

  • Scrolled through news headlines on my phone;
  • Chatted with my excellent friend Anita on Slack;
  • Checked my email;
  • Responded to a text from my excellent friend Danielle;
  • Saw that a story about a unicorn puppy was trending on Google and immediately clicked on it;
  • Checked out an ebook from the library; and
  • Slacked my husband (who is literally across the hall) a Parks and Rec gif…for no reason.

So how long has it taken me to write this post? I honestly don’t know because I keep interrupting myself.

My digital distractions are out of control. So I did some research on just how bad those digital distractions are on writing output. It’s pretty bad, you guys.

I have some tips for managing digital distractions in an article here. A lot of getting published is just putting in the time. You have to write to write!

How do you manage digital distractions and actually get writing done? Taking all advice!