<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Although I love being with my kids and family and having a day off, I get more satisfaction from working hard than doing nothing. Relaxing is not just being idle. You\u2019ll generally feel better when all your muscles hurt from the workout you did yesterday, than from laying still all day. But maybe that\u2019s just me.\r\n\r\nThe fact is that digital media have a habit of pulling you back in. That\u2019s all in the best interest of the services you are using of course. Those Facebook notifications make you want to keep coming back for more. Those red squares or circles with numbers in them are simply irresistible. You can\u2019t ignore them. You must to click them. You need to have all those boxes checked and messages replied to and cannot leave stones unturned and messages unread.\r\n\r\nExcept of course you don\u2019t. I\u2019m not a nervous wreck and I can relax just fine. All those social networks and services are as intimidating as walking into a library. My first impression is to be overwhelmed with the amount of information I can access, but then I relax and realize I don\u2019t really need to go through every book, but can pick up what I want and ignore the rest.\r\n\r\nEvery generation has a generation above it that blames a medium for everything thats wrong with the world. Videogames were to blame for violence. Before that television was dumbing down a whole generation. Somewhere in between, kids were losing themselves in cartoons. I\u2019ve heard that when the chaise longue became popular in France politicians warned that kids would get addicted to hanging around on them and not play outside anymore. Blaming the medium is as old as, well, any medium.\r\n\r\nOf course there are also people who put too much faith in technology when it comes to relaxing. I use an app to track my sleeping patterns and have the impression it helps me sleep better. When I wear my Nike FuelBand I relax when have moved enough and reach my daily goal. I never get lost any more because I use the GPS tracker in my phone. And I can relax when my kids are hanging around the house because I can always see where they are using Find my Friends. But research has shown that the more we know the more worried we get.\r\n\r\nMy mother had no idea where I was hanging out and what I was doing and although I\u2019m sure she worried, she also trusted me to do the right thing. I assume I\u2019m less worried, but am I really, when I\u2019m frantically checking my Find my Friends app, charging my phone because I would be lost without GPS and keeping track of my body movements all day so I can reach my FuelBand goal?\r\n\r\nWhen it comes to relaxing, technology is a double-edged sword \u2013 which makes it a very good subject for this month\u2019s issue of TNW Magazine.\r\n\r\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/magazine/2013/07/25/issue-v1-7-letter-from-the-editor/>