Work, study, leisure, information: via computers, television, smart phones and tablets, every day we spend an enormous amount of time looking at a screen. In the digital era does there exist a real danger of "media obesity", similar to the one involving excessive food intake? The author develops this analogy and identifies four potential remedies: curbing consumption, choosing higher quality content and relationships, avoiding the perils of multi-tasking and attention loss, and carefully managing the off-line/on-line balance of personal relationships.

Marco Gui teaches Sociology of Culture and Media at the Bicocca University in Milan.