Do you Digital Detox?
Do you Digital Detox?
The term 'Digital Detox' (Digital cleanse, tech free time or similar) seems to be everywhere at the moment. It's basically giving yourself time away from your screens and tech or limiting it.
Is this something you are aware of or something that you do already?
I found myself spending far too much time staring at screens. The time used for business and speaking with friends and family is necessary, but it's about the times of day (or night) this happens. And then the wasted time not about work or catching up with friends/family, where you end up falling down a social media rabbit hole. And this at the expense of sleep, activities, real life human connections etc.
For me, it's almost like a hangover from the pandemic where this digital connection was essential. Living in the modern age seems that people are able to be connected 24/7 - but should we be and is it healthy for us to do this?
And I know for some people having this social digital connection remains essential to ease loneliness and also in finding their like minded community. But, too much of it can have negative impact on our sleep, mental health and cause physical symptoms (from posture).
So, what did I do?
- I started to ease away from my screens.
- It started with turning the WiFi off on the phones (1 business, 1 personal) overnight and leaving the phones out of reach.
- Then utilising the new wellbeing functions on the phones and tablet - setting up the bedtime mode, adding daily timers to certain apps.
- I try not to pull my phone out when travelling on the tube and bus, and I use that time to read. Although, sometimes this can be my only chance to catch up with emails and messages so on occasion it becomes necessary to ease the anxiety.
Don't get me wrong, I like my phones and the accessibility and functionality. But it's about not getting too fixated with them where they affect my general wellbeing. As with most things, it's about balance.
What do you think? If you do any digital detoxing what do you do and how often?
Why have tech free time?
The main reason I am highlighting this is due to the way using our screens impacts our mental health.
It can add to the ongoing anxiety, stress and feelings of loneliness.
If you spend most of your day scrolling through Instagram, TikTok, Facebook etc, it can easily feel like everyone else is off doing wonderful things all the time, looking amazing and living these perfect lives. But these tiny snapshots they share with us are not the full picture. These are very selected images and news picked for us to see. What you don't see is how many photos or videos it took to get these images and at what angle, where is the light..... And also what went on over the rest of the 23 hours and 50 minutes of their day.
It's difficult to not compare or have that FOMO feeling, but that's why coming away from the screen is useful.
And to add to this is all the negative news and comments that plague the pages we view - all thanks to the algorithms used by these companies.
Try a few simple steps as I've listed above to give yourself time to step away from the screens and tech.
- Put time limits on your apps.
- Switch on the bedtime mode.
- Keep your tech away from your bed at nighttime.
- Put a rubber band around your phone. Then when you're in autopilot and reach for your phone you'll look at the rubber band and ask, why is this there? Then you'll remember it's so you don't just open the phone and scroll through apps when you don't need to.
- Spend the time you would have been randomly scrolling going outside for a walk, cooking, gardening, chatting to friends/family, join a free walking group, read a book......even sleep/rest.
Enjoy your tech free time.
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