Today, I have a few quick questions for you. Do you own a smartphone? Or maybe an iPad? If so, how often do you use it? How do you feel it has affected your life and impacted your relationships (if at all)?

If you have kids, do they use technology a lot? How has it affected their lives? Time Magazine has reported that people today have 33% fewer friends than 20 years ago. And on top of that, college students have reported significantly less cooperation and trust, and they lack the ability to understand and share feelings with another person as a direct result of technology.

So how does this affect you and your life? Look at it this way…

Where does money come from? Not the money tree (we know that). It comes from people. Where do opportunities come from? What about job promotions, or even jobs, themselves? They all come from people.

You work with people, live with people, eat with people and give birth to people. So while you may not be concerned with how many friends you have, you should be! Building a network is a huge part of your business, and in your life you rely on relationships for support and encouragement. Healthy relationships keep us happy!

Don’t mistake my intention here. Technology serves a great purpose to help grow your network, and it allows us to stay connected to people. But The New York Times reports an American adult will stare at a screen for eight and a half hours a day. There is a lot of time wasted on technology. And there is also a lot of time you probably spend engaging in technology when you should be engaging in your family or loved ones.

Here are a few places to work on:

• Studies show viewing an LCD screen before bed kills REM sleep, so try turning off your technology and reading a book or talking to your spouse before bed.
• During the day, try to set a limited amount of time for you and/or your kids to use the computer or TV for non-school or work related activities.
• If you are with family or friends, disengage from technology! Focus on THEM, not your email or social media feed.
• Try using the internet to learn new skill sets and expand your circle of influence, not to just mindlessly waste time.

Remember, your technology habits will be passed on to your children. Do you want them to be more disconnected and have fewer friends and connections as they grow up? If the current generation has 33% fewer friends, how many fewer will the next generation have as we become a more technology based society?

They aren’t going to learn productive and healthy people skills from their teachers. They aren’t going to learn people skills from texting their friends nonstop. And they won’t learn it from TV.

What I want you to take away from today’s Daily Fix, is that your technology use could be hurting your business and personal life. Worse, it could be hurting your children’s as well. It’s time to learn how to use technology for good and develop healthy screen time habits which can help you in every area of your life.

If you want to encourage your family and close friends to start engaging in the world again and expanding their circle of influence, sharing this Daily Fix would be a great start. Let’s start helping each other and forming great relationships now, instead of ones cloaked with distrust.

Leave your comments for me here, and thank you for taking the time to connect with me today.

In great faith,

P.S. If you are interested in using technology for GOOD, to better your business and expand your influence, check out Social Media Empire, geared specifically towards you!