Why we need an off button

My friend Paul Manzella sent along this link to an interview on NPR of Google CEO Eric Schmidt with Kai Ryssdal.

Perhaps the key part had to do with unplugging from all the techno-noise, something I have uncharacteristically been working at for the past few months, with varying amounts of success.

Here’s a snippet:

Q:: Do you ever feel that maybe we all just need an off button just to be able to disconnect for a little while? I know that’s a little bit counter-intuitive for a guy in your position.

SCHMIDT: I would argue even more strongly that every device needs to have an off button and you need to know how to use it because it’s possible to spend your whole life on-line and miss out on the enormously wonderful human things about life. That technology will never replace the joy of holding your child or grandchild’s hand, the smell of food in the bakery. We’re not trying to compete with that. And I worry that the human brain is so easily addicted to things that we can become addicted to information. And that we can discover that you need to go out and smell the fresh air, go get some exercise, be healthy, tell people you love them, all the things that are important about being humans. Humans are not the same as computers. We’re not trying to replace the human mind by the computer, we’re just trying to have the computers do things that they do well to augment human lifestyles.

Does that resonate with you? It sure did with me, especially the part about being “addicted to information.”