Love it AND hate it.
Master or slave?
Or do you think it is under control?
I’m talking about our technology: phone calls, zoom meetings, texts, email, social media, streaming . . .
It is now easier for some people to chat with someone on the other side of the world than have a face to face conversation with the person on the other side of the table. How did this happen?
Perhaps the generation born between 1995 and 2012 who grew up on smartphones and social media are the warning example, the canary in the coal mine. They know nothing else but this level of social connectivity without being with an actual person. As a result, free-floating anxiety and anxiety-related disorders are pervasive in that generation.
The cell phone is a vital appendage to most. There is the dreaded FOMO – fear of missing out – on the latest post or text. Parents worry that their kids will not be able to reach them if needed. Travelers need instant directions and to know the best local restaurants. Workers fear being unreachable. Perhaps everyone secretly fears boredom. What did humans do before cell phones? I remember, do you?
Technology benefits us, at what cost?
Yes, the technology has given us great innovations to connect to each other. However, could they be having harmful effects on us? If so, how do we avoid the harm without throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
One of the biggest problems with our technology is that it creates possibilities which are endless, all-pervasive, and addictive. It has created a life of constant connections, so that in a moment by ourselves, not in a virtual conversation or scrolling through feeds, feels surreal and we don’t know what to do with ourselves.
We have lost control of our attention, because there is always the next ringtone or ping or “like” to respond to. Even back in 2017, Bill Maher called “likes” “the new smoking.”
Addictive
The way we use our tech just might be as addictive as smoking; we are highly susceptible to the way the tech operates. Nevertheless, technology is a moderate behavior addiction, not as severe as a chemical dependency. But what makes it worrisome is that the tech companies encourage behavioral addiction through the social approval and intermittent positive reinforcement built into using the tech. It serves these companies because money is king and they know an unthinking, addicted user will get more sales for their advertisers.
It seems like we lose our ability to choose any other way because our survival impulses are manipulated, therefore we continue to give our freedom up to digital technology.
There is a way out
It takes much more than half-way measures such restrictions or taking a digital break, because those strategies end up failing as we lose control once again to the pull of the screen.
We can break the bonds of slavery to tech, break the spell of our digital technology when we look within to our deeply help values and use that as a basis for our choices. We can use technology to live life well as long as we look beyond the convenience it offers to rediscover what it is that makes life worthwhile. When looking within, we can clearly distinguish what makes our life good and dedicate our time to those things and protect that time.
When we are assaulted with feeds to scroll through, a link to click which leads down a rabbit hole, or one more cute kitty video, we can recognize these as low-value activities.
When we value our time, we don’t clutter it with activities that do not feed the soul. And when we eliminate these low-value activities, we don’t mind it if we missed a viral video of a kid being silly after dental anesthesia. So what?
Sometimes we don’t think that one more store app that promises convenience, or one more newsletter list or one more entertainment app is really clutter. But the cost in time can add up. Moment App, an app that tracks screen time, has reported that the average user spends 3 out of the 24 hours we have in a day looking at their phone. What else could we be doing with that time idled away?
What really matters
Once we have decided to eliminate clutter because it wastes our time and distracts our attention, then we can delve deeply into what matters. I am confident that there is a way to use technology that supports my deepest values. However, it takes careful planning to extract the full potential of the technology while maintaining my values.
Taking a note from the Amish culture, we can look beyond the convenience that the tech promises to our intention in using it. We can start with our values then work backwards to determine if the technology fits those intentions and values.
When that is clear, then aligning our use of tech with our intentions takes drastic measures. No gradual strategy can work against the addictive nature of the technology, especially when we have to take a few extra steps when we give up its convenience.
What it takes
Cal Newport, in his book “Digital Minimalism – Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World” suggests a way to optimize our use of technology, starting with a 30 day break.
- Put aside a 30 day period to take a break from “optional” technologies.
It is optional unless the temporary removal would harm or significantly disrupt the daily operation of your professional or personal life.
Social media on the phone is optional because of the tendency to browse from boredom, so remove it and access social media only on the computer.
- During the break, explore and rediscover activities and behaviors that are satisfying and meaningful.
Develop a full leisure life so there is not a void that gets filled with technology.
Strenuous physical activity like gardening, home maintenance, hiking and camping are favorites of those who are financially independent, so have a choice.
Crafts, making things with our hands, is a skill that makes something of value and can be highly pleasurable and rewarding.
- At the end of the break, reintroduce optional technologies starting from a blank slate. For each, determine the value it serves in your life, and how specifically you will use it to maximize its value.
Ask: Does this technology directly support something I deeply value? (not just any use)
When reintroducing what is optional, put in place operating procedures specifying exactly how and when you use it.
Use social media like social media professionals do: extract value for professional and personal life, avoiding low-value distraction with discipline, and don’t use it as a source of entertainment.
Schedule in advance the time you may spend on low-quality leisure. Your remaining leisure time is protected for more substantial activities.
I recommend reading the book to get the full scope of the program and how to work it.
Our choice
In the same way that the innovation of high tech processed foods led to a global health crisis, the unintended side effect of digital communication (a sort of fast food diet) is becoming a crisis of its own. In an NPR interview, Holly Shakya who authored a study in the American Journal of Epidemeology, February 2017 reinforced this idea:
“What we know at this point is that we have evidence that replacing your real-world relationships with social media use is detrimental to your well-being.”
Cal Newport said: Humans are not wired to be constantly wired.
How will you define your relationship to technology? Allow yourself to be an unconscious slave? Fight against it with unsustainable resolve? Or decide to intentionally decide, then make a plan?
Can you free yourself and make it intentional? How will that look for you?
Please comment below.
