If you reading this online at work - in between checking emails, writing a report for your boss or a client and/or monitoring the price of tea in China - you're risking a major drop in productivity.
Hopefully the time you're spending away from other tasks will be balanced by learning something new and interesting. But even if it's relevant to your work, switching back and forth between screens can seriously mess with your mind.
According to US media and technology writer William Powers "...we're constantly contending with far more tasks than our minds can handle. We find it increasingly hard to concentrate on any one of them for more than a few minutes. It's estimated that unnecessary interruptions and consequent recovery time now eat up an average of 28 per cent of the working day".
More than a quarter of our working day wasted? Weren't computers, laptops and mobile phones supposed to make us more efficient, more productive?
Well they have, of course. But as Powers argues in his new book Hamlet's Blackberry "the tool that giveth also taketh away".
"Psychologists tell us that when you abandon a mental task to attend to an interruption, your emotional and cognitive engagement with the main task immediately begins to decay, and the longer and more distracting the interruption, the harder it is to reverse this process.
"By some estimates, recovering focus can take ten to twenty times the length of the interruption. So a one-minute interruption could require fifteen minutes of recovery time."
At this point, you may as well keep reading.
Screens were originally developed to protect us from the world, or at least to hide us from prying eyes. But modern screens invite the world in - a tidal wave of information, entertainment and distraction.
Powers describes a "conundrum of connectedness". Our digital age provides immense benefits but it can also make it harder for us to focus and find the depth and space for the creativity we crave.
Powers' epiphany came when he literally went overboard with technology. He fell off a boat, his mobile phone drowned and he experienced the "sudden ebullience" of sailing on the water on a nice spring day enjoying the feeling of being unmoored from the world.
It's the sort of freedom you might enjoy when you're forced to turn off your mobile phone on a plane - no-one can bother you with an urgent demand.
William Powers is not the first to suggest or to try deliberate periods of digital disconnection. West Australian writer and commentator Susan Maushart documents her family's six month "self-imposed exile from the Information Age" in her book The Winter of our Disconnect. According to the publicity blurb "Susan's experiment with her family was a major success and she found that having less to communicate with, her family is communicating more".
I don't know anyone who doesn't appreciate the gifts of the digital age. Instant news on Twitter, family photos on Facebook, downloadable movies, online banking and buying, blogs, chartrooms, - that ability to reach out instantly and grasp whatever you need, to connect with people and ideas you're interested in or those you want to know more about.
But time spent looking out needs to be balanced with time looking in, time spent absorbing what we've learnt or discovered about the world.
According to the latest Urban Market Research conducted by Lifelounge Group in conjunction with Sweeney Research, young Australians are starting to press the pause button.
While an internet connection and a mobile phone were rated the two top things the 16 to 30 year olds surveyed couldn't do without, the researchers claim the latest survey reveals a new trend; the need to 'pause and absorb'. Reading a book was the most popular offline activity.
But Dr Cassie Govan, co-author of the report, says the 'pause' can't be too long.
"Falling behind isn't an option. There's an ever present undercurrent of anxiety around this fear of missing out or dropping off the pace. We call this 'exclusion anxiety' and it's a function of wanting to avoid feeling socially aloof or culturally detached."
Dr Govan says it's realistic that people would be more likely or able to "contemplate" when they've disconnected from a screen but says the pause is more about having a quick break from being constantly online than being motivated by a need to take time out to ponder.
"Exclusion anxiety' might be prompting you to read this. You may have found it while switching screens to take a break from other tasks.
I hope you can take at least a few minutes to think about it before you switch back.