This Christmas I’m giving myself an unusual gift: a screen free holiday season. It may seem hypocritical as a strategist with an interest in makes people behave in different ways to take a sudden interest in screen dodging, but hear me out:
Oh no! Not another digital detox post!
I’ve been making a few swaps of late: out goes low quality information (social/viral news, snackable content etc); in come long reads and podcasts. So less of a detox more of a healthy media diet that prioritises actively learning and building meaningful connections over passive entertainment, and most importantly doesn’t nudge me into an eternally distracted state.
As a result of doing so, I stumbled across two really interesting people – Manoush Zomorodi creator of the Note to Self Podcast/ author of Bored and Brilliant and Dan Harris of 10% Happier. Dan was interviewing Manoush about her views on our relationships with our devices – she made a point that we are currently immersed a live group experiment (if it had a title it would perhaps be “The Effect of Mobile Technologies on Human Minds”) and we have no idea of the outcome. It’s listening to this episode (here) that got me thinking “Hold on a second: I want to be in control of my device, rather than the other way around!” I’d had this in my mind since Faris Yakob’s media diet pyramid, based on the UDSA’s food pyramid.
I’d argue that a great complement to a good media diet is actually creating stuff; whether that’s solving problems, learning a craft, starting an event, or writing some code – as research shows it’s better for our health.
Bad stuff out
But in order to make the most of ‘good stuff in’ I decided to get more of the bad stuff out. So the next thing to go were notifications, unless they are for calls, text messages, slack updates from my co-founders at The New Work or to find out when my Uber arrives. Then (painfully) Instagram, which I love, but I had to get it off my phone. I have no self control over it. I’ve got 24 hours in a day and if I want to address my production to consumption ratio, it’s not going to be helped by spending 4hrs a day liking pics of the gay glitterati during gala season.
As someone who thinks about human behaviour for a living, it makes sense for me to look at the effect of sticky addictive technologies on my own behaviour and by extension the people around me. There are an increasing number of people looking at digital ethics – how is tech shaping how we think? Is there such a thing as too frictionless? How do we invite people to discover products and services without collectively turning people into unhealthy disempowered drones that just buy stuff for the sake of it and make plastic mountains everywhere?
Betterment for everyone
For the Trendwatchers out there: many of us have come across the concept of Betterment – but how do we make this something that is genuinely accessible to everyone – not just rich urbanites with yoga studio subscriptions and techie quantified self-ers? Especially those who have lived their entire lives online on one end of the spectrum, as well as much older users who are late adopters on the other, just getting to grips with emerging technologies?
It was news of Cal Newport’s new book, Digital Minimalism that tipped me over the edge and got me to try and find some answers to some of these questions; looking at the value of just stopping everything for a bit, and then applying a really judicious lens on my use of digital tools. As news emerges of ad blocking stabilising in the UK but hitting an estimated 43% amongst people aged 18-24, it made me think that I’m very likely not alone in my desire for ‘bad stuff out’ – and in the future it’s not just interruptive advertising formats that will cause instant disengagement, but also attention fraying behavioural interventions that stop people from (ahem) “living their best life”.
Further reading: Check out David Cain of Raptitude for a cracking post on The Simple Joy of No Phones Allowed
Also published on Medium.