The traditional morning routine, from a far sleepier time, was to rise, shower, and eat breakfast while reading the daily paper. Now you can be checking email before your feet hit the floor. How web dependent is your morning routine?


Photo by adactio.

More so than ever, thanks to nearly constant increases in technology and bandwidth and decreases in the size of the devices that deliver information, we're able to stay jacked in to whatever is important to us: social networks, work email, stock prices, and more at all times. We've talked about the importance of putting off email and other distractions in the morning to get things done, but according to the New York Times that isn't how many people start their day:

This is morning in America in the Internet age. After six to eight hours of network deprivation - also known as sleep - people are increasingly waking up and lunging for cellphones and laptops, sometimes even before swinging their legs to the floor and tending to more biologically urgent activities. "It used to be you woke up, went to the bathroom, maybe brushed your teeth and picked up the newspaper," said Naomi S. Baron, a professor of linguistics at American University, who has written about technology's push into everyday life. "But what we do first now has changed dramatically. I'll be the first to admit: the first thing I do is check my e-mail."


What does your morning routine look like? Do you make a beeline from the bathroom to your browser window or does your morning follow a more traditional bent of bacon and eggs before any business can be attended to? Sound off in the comments to share your routine and how it is—or isn't—working for you.

For Families Today, Technology is Morning's First Priority [The New York Times]