Do you suffer from digital exhaustion?

Was it Steve Rubel, the director of insights for Edelman Digital, who predicted a coming “attention crash”? Well Steve, I think a new superbug hit me today: digital exhaustion.

Are you at risk? Read on. On a recent morning, a glorious Saturday full of sunshine, I chose to skip a walk and stroll to my computer, determined to make my first blog post in several weeks. I couldn’t do it. My heart was heavy. My back and my wrists were limp. Brain fog did not respond to caffeine.

The information in my daily workload has been sliced so thin that my brain and the splintered messages it receives feel pulverized, like Jamba Juice in a blender.

Don’t get me wrong. The digital world is a blast. I love it — to my own detriment. I think we call that “addiction.”

Here’s my story:

Each morning …

1. Hundreds of e-mails arrive. Scanning to find the urgent ones in record speed hurts the mind and the eyes.

2. My e-mail software informs me I send 3,000-4,000 e-mails each month.

3. The social and new media world grabs me by the throat asking me to acknowledge new friends on LinkedIn and Facebook or come up with “30 things about me…”