SMARTPHONE ADDICTION / DIGITAL WELLNESS

Digital wellness is the idea and practice of limiting your exposure to the negative effects of social media and technology in general, in order to help renormalise your dopamine receptors and concentration span.

I breakdown why our phones are addicting, as well as introducing you to some techniques you can implement in your life in order to improve your ‘digital wellness’

First of all, what is our phone addiction doing to us?

Former Vice President of User Growth at Facebook mentions: “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works,’"

Smartphones and social media has turned us all into addicts.

You might find yourself checking your phone at the slightest feeling of boredom, purely out of habit.

Programmers work very hard behind the screens to keep you doing exactly that.

Our sleep is being ruined.

Checking your phone just before bed and pinging those reward pathways get your brain out of the relaxed state that is optimal for sleep.

Additionally, the blue light of our phones affects our sleep and melatonin levels.

Excessive electronic media use at night is a risk factor for both adolescents’ sleep disturbance and depression https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10964-014-0176-x

Cell Phones Causing More Motor Vehicle Fatalities

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/shoag/files/cell_phones_and_motor_vehicle_fatalities.pdf

Why has this occurred?

Because your time and attention is the most valuable commodity for these big corporations.

The more you are engaged with their “free” app, the more they can charge advertisers.

Thanks to social networking apps, immense social environments are accessible to us at all times through our phones.

As a human our natural instincts are to be social, as that provided us with more chance of staying alive in our caveman era days.

Now, instead of a typical local tribe of 150 members, social networks provide us with an online virtual tribe of many many times that number.

It is impossible for our brains to conceptualise and keep up with that many social connections.

Dopamine is released when we eat delicious food, when we have sex, after we exercise, and, importantly, when we have successful social interactions.

In an evolutionary context, it rewards us for beneficial behaviors and motivates us to repeat them.

Now when this is applied to smartphones, although not as intense as other sources, positive social stimuli will similarly result in a release of dopamine, reinforcing whatever behavior preceded it (checking your notifications).

EVERY notification, whether it’s a text message, a “like” on Instagram, or a Facebook notification, has the potential to be a positive social stimulus and dopamine influx.

PRACTICES TO IMPROVE DIGITAL WELLNESS

So what are some things you can do about the shackles that are affecting us all?

Black+White mode - go to Settings -> Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters ON - Greyscale.

You can set this to a triple tap of the home button for ease, this will remove all the high contrast colours that make your phone so addicting.

Locking phone in other room - During deep concentration work, have your phone on silent locked in a drawer in a different room so it’s not distracting to you.

Blue Light Blocking - Remove part of the effect of blue light by either implementing the Night Shift settings on phone/laptop or installing software such as Flux. Will make your phone screen more orange prior to bed. Can also get glasses that do this.

No phone / social media use before bed OR upon waking - The 2 hours before bed and the 2 hours upon waking are not times where you should be using your phone/ checking notifications.

Before bed, prepare for sleep, upon waking, don’t immediately rush your brain with notifications and dopamine responses.

Disabling your notifications - no brainer, turn all notifications off so that you’re not having your concentration broken by noises or popups. You can check your apps at a set time with a set purpose rather than reacting to the phone

Complete digital detox weekends - Every now and then, set aside a weekend where you don’t go on social media and you don’t use your phone for the whole day. Best done in nature where you can get away from tech in general.

Leave your phone at home for social events - This is a great one: Just leave your phone at home when catching up or seeing friends/family. You won’t need it, someone always has a phone.

You will notice how much freer you feel socially without the ‘lifeline’ of checking your phone and will force you to be more social.

Smartphones and Social Media are a tool to be used consciously and for a specific purpose..

Don't use your smartphone while doing other tasks
Don't let your social media use affect your emotional state
Don't let your phone use impede on proper social etiquette and function
Slowly reduce your use over time, using you phone with purpose + intent.