The New York Times – To prevent distractions, Conor Dougherty, an economics writer, dumped social media and anything fun — even his browser — from his smartphone. “…I cover California and the economy and have to read news for work, so the mental bargain I’ve made with myself is that I can use my phone as much or as long as I want — so long as I’m reading books or news. Aside from news, Audible, and service-type things like maps and airline apps, I have nothing on my phone. I even disabled the browser. I find this keeps me mostly sane and mostly productive…Technology is a hard balance for everyone these days, but it’s especially hard for reporters, who in the pursuit of readers and stories can convince themselves that Twitter wars (“being part of the conversation”) and YouTube holes (“cultural research”) are productive uses of time. My biggest problem with social media is that sometimes I used it for work and sometimes I used it to goof off, and somewhere along the way I lost track of which was which…”