OK, fess up: Your life is cluttered with so many passwords and personal identification numbers you can't keep them straight.
- You carry a cell phone, a beeper and a two-way radio to ensure you can be reached anytime, anywhere - and you constantly check your e-mail and voice mail, too.
- Trying to operate the new copier at your office makes your head pound.
- You feel impatient waiting for your e-mail to download.
- News of the latest, greatest technology innovation makes you want to go back to bed.
If you nod knowingly to one or more of those sentences, there's a word for what you're experiencing: technostress. The good news? There are ways you can get a grip on the technology inundating everyday life, says Michelle M. Weil.
Weil and her husband, Larry D. Rosen, are co-authors of a new book called "TechnoStress: Coping with Technology @work, @home, @play." The couple also are co-founders of Byte Back Technology Consultation Services, which helps individuals and corporations deal with technological change.
Their definition of technostress is any kind of negative reaction toward or overwhelming intrusion by technology.
The two psychologists began investigating reactions to technology 15 years ago after a colleague mentioned the dropout rate increased and grade point averages fell in a class that required use of computers.
In the mid-1980s, they ran a center to help people overcome what by then had been dubbed "computer phobia." The program was a huge success; most people got over their fear of technology after fewer than five hours at the center.
Though technology is much more pervasive today, public reaction is pretty much the same, Weil said.
About 15 percent of the population is made up of eager adopters - people who fearlessly embrace technology and believe it's a huge benefit in their lives. The rest are either "hesitant prove-its" or "resisters."
Those in the first group are willing to use technology but have to be convinced it will benefit them. They wait until technology is proven before trying it and tend to blame themselves when they experience glitches.
Resisters find technology makes them feel frustrated, awkward, upset and uncomfortable and avoid it as much as possible.
"They feel stupid in the face of technology," Weil said in an interview with the Deseret News. "They don't feel smart enough to learn or use technology, and they are sure they are the only ones not on board."
Resisters who are forced to use technology at work are absent a lot, are less productive and have more workers' compensation claims, she said.
No one is immune from technostress, however. Eager adopters get stressed out by slowness of technology and information overload. Fooled by the speed of technology, they tend to take on more than they can handle.
And they experience "multi-tasking madness," rapidly switching from one thing to the next or using several technological devices at one. They end up feeling increasingly overstimulated, forgetful and disorganized.
"One of the things these people are finding is that it's almost like they need another two to three hours in the workday to scroll through e-mail, listen to voice mail and play phone tag," Weil said.
A "hesitant prove-it" may balk at a grocery store that requires shoppers to scan and bag their own food or a restroom with sensor-activated water faucets.
And all three types may feel their personal space is being invaded by the "beeps and noises and lights" of technology in public places - pagers that go off in the movie theater and people who chat on cell phones in restaurants.
Weil and Rosen say one strategy to get a handle on technology is to acknowledge that there will always be more of it than any one person can ever use or understand.
"We have to develop an empowering attitude that says it's OK not to understand technology or to embrace it. If it works for you and enhances your life, fine," Weil said. If not, it's OK to just say no.
Their book gives tips on how technophobes can approach new technology (one tip: approach it like play) as well as how eager adopters can bring more balance into their lives (tip: set boundaries about when and from whom you'll accept pages or cell phone calls).
One chapter tells families how to cope with technology. Another advises corporations on how they can ease technostress in the workplace and help employees avoid "information fatigue syndrome."
Weil also hopes the book will help marketers and developers of technology understand the public they're trying to reach.
"If technology is poorly introduced, you lose market share, and if it's developed in a way that intimidates prospective users, they won't buy it or will end up returning it," she said. "Many companies are starting to pay attention to the fact that consumers are overloaded."