You are at dinner in a nice restaurant with your wife and you find yourself checking your email before the salad arrives. Or your family sits down to eat and people are looking at screens rather than each other.Or maybe your family is in all in the house but dispersed by screens. No one is talking. Everyone is in their own little technology world.

It may be time for a technology cleanse. Be warned. It won’t be easy.

Try this: For one week, fore go all screens. Computers and other devices can only be used for work or homework. This means no texting, Facebook, on-line videos, DVDs, email, etc. Are you up for the challenge? If you take it, I’ll see you in a week. Let me know how it went.

Need motivation? A 2010 Neilsen survey found the following. These are percentages of what we engage in on-line. If you do it all, that is about 50% of your time.

23.4% of time was spent on social networks/blogs

9.8% was spent on video games

7.5% was spent on email

4.1% on portals

4.0% on videos/movies

And of course, the concern is that when you are on a screen, you aren’t interacting with others. Technology can be a distraction from family, friends and much needed exercise.