Do you need a Digital Detox?

1. Do you look at your smartphone before you get out of bed?

2. Do you check Facebook more than five times a day?

3. Do you watch television holding your smartphone or tablet in your hand?

4. Do you find it impossible to stand in line without being online?

5. Do you check your emails more than three times a day?


If you answered yes to the above questions you could be in need of a digital detox and should seriously think about going digital cold turkey for a while. You could also be suffering from what's starting to be described as FOMO, or the 'fear of missing out'.

More and more doctors are identifying compulsive and paranoid like symptoms related to our digital lives and quite simply it's not healthy. To cater for this need to go digital cold turkey, digital retreats are popping up all over the States and more recently in the UK. That's right, they are going to take away your whole electronic support system when you walk through their gates - you are allowed books but of course only of the made out of trees variety.

The results from going offline are being described as JOMO, you guessed it - 'the joy of missing out'.  Suddenly you discover you're not actually missing out on all that much after all and you feel an enormous release and burden lifted from your shoulders.

So my advice. Switch off one day a week, or when you're on holiday, or limit how many times you allow yourself to go online a day. And who knows it may keep you out of the funny farm, where I'm pretty sure they don't allow you to take your smartphone.