Why We Need to Take Tech Breaks, with Arianna Huffington | Big Think.

Why We Need to Take Tech Breaks

Watch the newest video from Big Think

Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In conversation with How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes author Maria Konnikova, Arianna Huffington explains that no one — not even the head of a 24/7 multimedia company — needs to be plugged in all the time.

This is the seventh in an exclusive video series of today’s brightest minds exploring the theory of genius. Exclusive videos will be posted daily on youtube.com/bigthink throughout 92nd Street Y’s second annual 7 Days of Genius Festival: Venture into the Extraordinary, running March 1 to March 8, 2015.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:

Arianna Huffington is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of fourteen books. Her newest book, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder was published by Crown in March 2014 and debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list.

Since launching in 2005, The Huffington Post has become one of the most widely-read, linked to, and frequently-cited media brands on the Internet. In 2012, the site won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

Huffington has been named to Time Magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people and the Forbes Most Powerful Women list. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union.She serves on several boards, including HuffPost's partners in Spain, the newspaper EL PAÍS and its parent company PRISA; Onex; The Center for Public Integrity; and The Committee to Protect Journalists.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIPT:

Maria Konnikova: You’re someone who runs a media empire and when we think of journalists, when we think of media, when we think of news, you know, we’ll always think of you have your Twitter feed open. You have this open. You’re trying to figure out what’s happening, what you can write about. How does one accomplish something and be successful in careers like that while at the same time trying to balance the ills, so to speak, of multitasking.

Arianna Huffington: Well I think without question that if you are running a multimedia company the most important thing you can do is set the editorial priorities and make sure that you have people that you really trust and believe in running different departments and reporting to you, of course, and you being completely involved. But you don’t have to be on 24/7 and nobody needs to be on 24/7. The media operation has to be on 24/7, but not the same people. And that applies whether you’re running a media company, whether you’re running an investment bank with clients around the world. This is the era of collaboration. We need to recognize that if we work in teams, then somebody from the team will be on at all hours, but not the same person.

Maria Konnikova: I see this tension between multitasking and kind of the rise of technology and how tethered we all are to our phones, to all of these things going on. But at the same time a lot of the solutions are also technologically based so you have appendices in your book about all the ways that our phones and our computers can actually help us be more mindful. And I just found that a fascinating tension and I’d love to hear your thoughts about what the role of technology is in all of this.

Arianna Huffington: Yes I found it fascinating too. But then truth is paradoxical and one of the paradoxes is that we are now increasingly using technology to help us disconnect from technology and reconnect with ourselves. And some of the most successful features, like the Apple feature do not disturb, or wearable devices that are related to our growing recognition that we need to learn to disconnect from technology in order to actually nurture our humanity. Our relation with technology has led to an enormous amount of behavioral addictions. And we need to treat them seriously in our own lives. For me, it starts with the first step, which is picking a time at the end of your day.

Preferably at least half an hour before you’re going to go to sleep when you turn off all your devices and gently escort them out of your bedroom. This is paramount. And my nightstand is a completely device free zone that has spiritual books, a candle, a flower and water so that before I go to sleep .....

To read the transcript, please go to