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Here's why actress Rashida Jones says our personal devices are 'handcuffs'

Aly Weisman   

Here's why actress Rashida Jones says our personal devices are 'handcuffs'
EntertainmentEntertainment2 min read

Rashida Jones

Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images

In between writing the "Toy Story 4" script, starring in the first season of TBS show "Angie Tribeca," and producing a documentary for Netflix, "Hot Girls Wanted," Rashida Jones still finds time to tweet to her 943,000 followers and post on her Instagram account.

But it's the easy access to social media and the internet that Jones says has become her biggest distraction from focusing on her many work projects.

In a new cover interview with Wired magazine, the 39-year-old former "Parks and Recreation" star explains:

I'm done pretending that technology is helping me streamline things. Sure, there are apps and calendars and shortcuts, and I'm connected to everyone and everything I could possibly need to make my life easier, to make myself happier. But ultimately I use my devices to waste time-and I get kind of addicted to wasting time. My computer and my phone sometimes feel like beautifully designed, entertaining handcuffs.

But, Jones admits, "I'm partly to blame. I get distracted."

Like many people, Jones says, "I'm in the middle of an email-a work email-and suddenly I'm online looking at a Pinterest board of remodeled farmhouses or an article on ­Hillary 2016 or a video on Funny or Die, none of which is getting me any closer to replying to hundreds of unanswered emails or finishing a draft for a deadline that has come and gone."

"The tricky part is that everything is located in the same little place," Jones explains to Wired in a first-person essay on "Finding Happiness at Work." "Work, pleasure, distraction, misbehaving, responding, wasting time, buying, selling, dreaming, focusing … all options live together, and I can float from one to another with no effort. It is truly amazing. I'm in awe. But it doesn't help me be productive."

In order to maintain focus during the work day, Jones says she and her writing partner, Will McCormack, implement a "no-phones-for-an-hour rule."

"It seems utterly ridiculous that two grown-ups wouldn't be able to stay away from their phones for just an hour, but there are many days when my phone owns me. And the rule helps."

To read Rashida Jones' full piece on Wired, click here.

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