Our Relationship with Digital Technology
By: Sam Venables
Tags: Digital Nomads, Social Media, Digital Minimalism, Tech, Smartphones

Now, more than ever, our lives are entangled with the digital world. With an endless library of data in our pockets, we possess an unlimited supply of information and entertainment at any time of the day. The services now available make day-to-day life undoubtedly easier and convenience is at the heart of most modern digital services. Activities such as navigating a city, finding a date and communicating across long distances all require less effort thanks to new technology.

Below the surface, I believe that there are drawbacks from our emergence into the digital era. As smartphone technology has mushroomed, so has our reliance on them, creating what seems to be an innocent scene of the start of a dystopian film. I want to shed some light on the negatives of unmonitored excessive digital use, reliance on devices and the potential harm we are inflicting on ourselves. The relationship with your phone, computer and television may seem unimportant and trivial, existing as a modern-day ailment to boredom, but by the end of this post, I hope you will see things from a new perspective.

Without knowing, most readers of this post, especially younger readers will be excessive users of digital technology. One can take the hazard of guessing that the reader may mobilise the use of their device in a vast array of situations: communicating, unwinding after work, receiving approval, news source, entertainment and most importantly plugging in at every glimpse of boredom. I’m not going to try and convince you to return to a Nokia 3310 or start printing out directions again. Instead, after exposing the mere tip of the colossal iceberg which we face, I will suggest a solution to living amongst the screens of today.

WASTING TIME

The amount of time people spend on devices is the most obvious negative of living with supercomputers in our pockets. The usage tracking app RescueTime on iOS and Android reported than on average people spend 3 hours and 15 minutes on their phones a day. Unsurprisingly, when I suggest to my friends to check their average screen times, they respond with a look of disappointment and disgust.

The daily average screen time adds up to 49 days out of a year. With a majority of that time is solely wasted scrolling and flicking between apps in a habitual cycle without consciously deciding to. I constantly catch myself in moments of stillness automatically reaching for my phone without having a clear aim of what I’m doing on there. The home screen presents a candy shop choice as we choose which brightly coloured launch icon to pick first.

The weird thing is, I’m guessing that most people don’t want to use their phones as much as they do. I don’t want to watch people’s nightclub Instagram stories or watch a 20-minute highlight video of David Mitchell on Would I Lie to You. Without enforcing limits and rules, I’ll excessively use my phone and laptop for mindless stimulation. It’s mindless in the sense that the brain and body can go into low energy mode. It requires no mental or physical energy as the only outputs are short bursts of concentration and finger moving. Keeping the brain stimulated enough through surface-level data while still escaping boredom. The vortex will consume you until the cheap information will no longer suffice and you’ll stand up thirty minutes later with a brain accustomed to absorbing the information equivalent of junk food. Devices are just too convenient for our monkey brains, the comfort of collapsing on a sofa while plugging into a device that artificially creates dopamine is often irresistible when physically and mentally fatigued.

Modern screen technology is not only too advanced for our brains but it’s being designed and programmed to keep you hooked. Apps and services earn money through eyeball time, the more time people spend on their apps the more money they make. Instagram and Facebook want their users to be active as possible to maximise profits. They are exploiting human psychology to create a product as addictive as possible while cloaking it as an innocent service for sharing photos and keeping in touch with friends. Now, I’ll point out three simple examples.

When you think of Facebook you think of the colour blue. Their entire interface is blue, with the only exception being the notification button. The colour red creates a sense of urgency and importance, which you’re bound to check and keep you online.

Twitter and Instagram’s pull-to-refresh action has been copied from slot machines. The slot machine which is considered by some the ‘crack cocaine of gambling’ was designed that way to keep people playing and repeat spending money. These apps want you to keep refreshing that page in the hopes of new and exciting information. Just like you a slot machine, you can keep going forever.

The fear of missing out (FOMO) is often the reason people shy away from the idea of deleting social media. We’re hardwired to be cooperative and if all of our community is in on something, we want in too. The feeling of missing out on something ‘important’ or disconnection from social circles is enough to keep people using. Facebook knows this and uses it in a last-ditch effort when users try to deactivate their accounts. Just before washing your hands with Facebook, Zuckerberg will sneak attack you with his favourite FOMO weapon. Facebook warns ‘Your 419 friends will no longer be able to keep in touch with you’ and profile pictures the friends you interact with most will appear alongside text claiming ‘Josh will miss you’.

ATTENTION ECONOMY

Our attention spans have been commodified and are being reduced to small fragments of energy. I believe that the average person’s ability to focus for prolonged periods has weakened. This plays into the hands of big tech companies as the more distracted, addicted and information-craving their consumer base becomes, device usage will increase and so will their profits. I’m not proposing that big tech firms are at the centre of some malign conspiracy to dumb us down to mindless digital consumers but reducing our attention-deficit works out well for them as business owners.

I don’t write this in protest. It would be unfair to over-emphasise the agency of technology firms in producing these behavioural models when we live in a political society which rewards this type of behaviour. This is the game that all business owners are playing, if they can increase the variable which generates them profits, they will do so. Our attention is just another landscape of extraction, the capitalist engine is insatiable and will continuously seek out new hunting ground.

Our attention spans have become a new form of currency. We have the ‘freedom’ to choose where we spend our attention akin to where we spend our money on a high street. However, this high street is always open, increasingly addictive and you’re shopping there every single day.

Being able to focus is an important ability which is used in all areas of life. The quality of your leisure time, work and relationships all depend on your ability to pay attention to an external object/subject. Heart to heart conversations requires patience and time to work things through and trying to understand what another person is feeling/thinking requires focus. Leisurely activities such as creating art will crumble to sporadic frustrating burst of energy rather than concentrated periods of enjoyment. Productivity inside and outside the workplace will also suffer, slowing down the very system I am critical of.

STILLNESS AND THE PRESENT TENSE

With our increasingly distracted minds, moments of stillness are harder to come by. The constant phone checking and audio stimulation discourages us to sit back and enjoy the present. Uninterrupted stillness can be used as an opportunity for reflection and thought, thinking about what’s going on rather than seeing what’s going on in the lives of others. We are constantly hearing/seeing other people’s thoughts and ideas, leaving little room for ourselves to think and breathe. We’re waking up and through our devices instantly stepping into the lives of others, without checking in with yourself. We’re beginning to give more attention, care and thoughts to our phones rather than the relationship we have with ourselves, the relationship that shapes all our thoughts, actions and other relationships. I think that we should dedicate time every day free from external digital distractions if that be meditation, walking or mindfully drinking your coffee in the morning. Instead of checking out what your favourite rapper is doing on social media during the commute home, check-in with yourself.

I also believe that devices have crept into activities that don’t need their interference. Going for walks by yourself without an objective/destination often inspires creative thought. Eating dinner and having a conversation with family, friends and loved ones, instead of shovelling down food mesmerised by the TV, making grunts at each other in between bites. When you’re at the pub with your friends, there is no need to be using any social media at all. You are socialising in reality.

I’m not suggesting living like a monk. Ignoring the news, social media, music and podcasts. You can make specific time for these things, where they act as concentrated sessions rather than background noise and constant information throughout your day. Try to incorporate stillness and an awareness of the presence into your life. Our minds and the present are the only things we truly have. Don’t neglect them in the name of entertainment and stimulation. Boredom shouldn’t be feared, you’ll be amazed at what you find when paying closer attention.

RULES CREATE FREEDOM

The idea I propose is setting rules. We are disciplined in other areas of our lives such as fitness, diet, skincare, bedtimes etc. Creating rules can grant us freedom and avoid submission to the directionless chaos of the digital world. Unfortunately, mental rule-setting often turns out to broken promises. You must write them down if you want to have a chance. The rules I have implemented to my own life are specific to me, I have fine-tuned them to save me from wasting time, feeling mentally healthier and encourage better actions. Think about your own life and what part of it you would like to change. It could be limiting the amount of time you spend gaming or deactivating Instagram every other week. Be creative in ways you decrease your usage and untangle the mess with rules that are bespoke for your own life.

1. Only one YouTube video per day.

I love watching YouTube. I trick myself into thinking my addictive use of it is okay because I’ll occasionally watch an educational video. However, I often find myself spiralling down rabbit-holes. One hour later I’m watching a completely unrelated video, binge-watching in a coma-like state. Only allowing myself one video per day allows me to still keep up with my favourite channels and watch what I want to watch rather than being drawn in by the recommended section.

2. 20 minutes of social media per day.

20 minutes is enough time for me to do what I want on social media. Look at a few stories and photos on Instagram then use twitter for humour and politics. Some days I will abstain completely from social media as I have noticed a correlation between my usage and anxious thoughts. Ironically, I am using an app that limits a combined usage of all the social media apps I use.

3. 60 minutes of screen time max per day.

If you’ve read this post the reasons are obvious enough. This encourages me to engage in activities that I believe to be more valuable. With less time spent on my phone, it allows me to pursue learning and creative work rather than finding something on my phone to fill the time.

4. One episode per day.

If I’m watching a TV series, I’ll limit myself to one episode a day. I usually watch these in the evening and would prefer to spend my time reading instead. Also, this prevents me from getting stuck in the cliff-hanger loop, allowing me to reflect on each episode.

I believe our relationship with technology is too important not to monitor. I will be posting on this topic again but on shorter concentrated issues rather than this broad introduction to my thought on the matter. There are lots of different elements to cover and I’ve missed out a lot that I originally hoped to include. Those who have signed up for my email list will have received an email with some further material on this subject including a book and podcast.

Those who have signed up for my email list will have received an email with some further material on this subject including a book and podcast I enjoyed on this subject. If you’re interested in joining there is a link below.

Originally posted on vnbls.com