Infotoxicification

I am not sure if INFOTOXIFICATION is a real word, new word or a made up word. Just now, when I googled it, I found results for INFOTOXIC and INFOTOXICITY; described as a consequence of modern lifestyles connecting to information and multimedia technologies with insufficient time spent in natural environments. Information is so readily available and there is plenty of it on any subject you can think of at the press of a button. It's quite seductive. And in away digital supplies of information can replace memory and thinking. And yet is too much of a good thing bad for you? What happens when we have an excess of information?

Alan Logan the co-author of Your Brain on Nature says, it's time to unplug ourselves from technology. "Even when individuals enter green space, they are often not really 'there' in the mindful sense -- texting, incoming messages, and eyes fixated upon smart phones take the brain elsewhere. In many ways we are drowning in a sea of 'infotoxicity' and entertainment media."

There are many evidence based health and wellbeing benefits for disconnecting ourselves from technology and reconnecting ourselves with nature, plants and animals. For example, it helps to support our positive mental health and outlook, it creates emotional strength, slows us down and brings us back into our bodies, it helps to remind us of our animal selves and serves to open us to a reverence for the natural world.

The other side of this technological picture is what happens when we spend too much time in front of a screen. I know for myself I lose concentration levels, I get mentally tired, my physical conditioning declines due to long periods of inactivity, my thought processes lack depth and flit about at an increasing rate of speed getting lost on the lanes and byways of the digital highway. I can begin a search with great intent and purpose and yet with in a short period of time have lost connection with my original inquiry and be pursuing some fascinating and yet mindless cul-de-sac of curiosity. All in all as much as I appreciate and don't want to live without my laptop or mobile phone I now would like to have extended periods without them. Is this possible? Would I experience withdrawal symptoms? Would this feel like a sort of info-detoxification for my mind and body?

I don't know the answer to these questions. I am curious to find out. Can I build in digital/IT free hours in my day and week? Watch this space.