How big tech companies are weaning themselves off... tech

AT Google, some employees use a tool that restricts time spent on email. A senior Apple Inc executive said his wife used a device that sets iPhone and iPad limits for their children. Members of a venture capital firm meditate before phone-free quarterly meetings. Slava Rubin, co-founder of crowdfunding site Indiegogo, has a strict no-screen policy for gatherings and adopted a similar rule for his bedroom.

"Literally, the only electricity we use is one lamp," he says.

Faced with a deluge of text messages, social-media updates, emails and other distracting alerts, tech executives, entrepreneurs and rank-and-file workers in Silicon Valley are trying to limit their use of the gadgets and digital services they helped create.