Perhaps no form of addiction is more commonplace in contemporary society than our collective craving to be online all the time - reading our email, scanning blogs, updating our Facebook status, scrolling through Twitter feeds, texting our friends. And, as with any form of addiction, the craving is never really satisfied, and so it just keeps manifesting.
In the case of online technology addiction, there is always another email, another tweet, another text, another post - a constant stream of information displays and communication requests. Even as we complain about the stress of this unending crush of data, more often than not we find ourselves complying with the implicit demand to keep clicking and keystroking, to stay connected for every possible minute, out of fear that we might miss something.
Right at the beginning of this highly useful book, the author outs himself as a recovering technology addict, someone who knows firsthand of what he is writing about. In his own words - "I discovered that when I was online ... I felt connected to other people. There was a sense ... of not being alone. It was the same with my cell phone. By knowing I was reachable, I felt linked to other people." What he came to see, and now wants to share with his readers, is that this sense of being connected through our devices and our social media activities is merely an illusion, and a harmful one at that. Individuals addicted to being online are what he terms "disconnectedly connected ... connected to technology but largely disconnected from ourselves."
After this opening confession, he then proceeds to offer us a series of short, thoughtful essays on various aspects of being present and mindful - the "ancient secrets" of his subtitle - designed to help us connect more strongly to our own consciousness and creativity. He argues convincingly that the more we learn to disconnect from the alluring attractions of the online environment, the more we'll be able to use that very environment to connect with others in an authentic, more meaningful way.
Written in an engaging conversational style, each chapter is brief enough to read and reflect on during a morning coffee break - a deliberate nod on the author's part to the time-pressured technology-driven professionals who are his target audience. While readers more experienced with mindfulness practice may find this style a bit too facile, the breadth of topics covered more than compensates for the brevity. Within these pages you can find useful treatments of such varied issues as anger management, stress reduction, effective transitioning, dealing with stuckness, coming to terms with the past, practicing non-attachment, and working with the need to be right all the time. Quite an impressive range - and even more helpful, each section of the book concludes with a suggested practice for developing the mindfulness skills addressed in that section's chapters.
For those just beginning their acquaintance with mindfulness practice, this book will serve as a thorough and accessible introduction. For those already acquainted with the benefits of mindfulness, it will serve as a refresher course for honing skills already acquired, and as a source of inspiration for expanding one's practice to the next level.
