I bet once upon a time you would have never dreamed of checking your email during lunch with a friend. Or dinner with your family. It would have been not only rude, but incredibly inconvenient. Today, in our “always on” culture, social norms and expectations are changing.

According to recent studies, so are our brains. You might have thought your ability to chat, text, surf the Net and make dinner for your family meant you were adept at multitasking. In fact, studies show that people who identify themselves as multitaskers are in fact the worst at it. Researchers believe our relationship with technology has actually changed the way our brains work. As reported in the New York Times series Your Brain on Computers, technology provides sudden bursts of information to which our brains respond with a release of dopamine. In other words, digital stimulation can be addictive. And it compromises our ability to focus and switch among tasks. (You may want to check out the series’ two interactive tests in which you can see how you measure up in these areas.)

Many of us have been feeling the technology creep for awhile as it invades more and more areas of our lives. New devices have eliminated the “where” of  being connected—you don’t have to sit at your desk to check email—but, perhaps of more significance, it also eliminated the “when.” That puts the burden of turning off on you.  

How has technology impacted your life?