digital addiction

How many times a day do you check your smartphone? How much time do you spend in instant messengers, social networks, mail, online shopping applications? Can you do without a smartphone while driving? When was the last time you communicated with your child without being distracted by notifications?

Difficult questions. And a time of paradoxes. It seems that technology should make our life easier, relieve it for creativity and communication. But in fact, it turns out that devices prevent us from living a peaceful life. Digital addiction (digital addiction) is not a fictional, but a real problem. It is proposed to solve it “wedge by wedge” – with the help of special applications.

We know that we are “sick”, but we are not ready to radically “treat”

Google has done some interesting research on digital addiction. Users in several countries of the world aged 18 to 65 years old, users of smartphones on Android and iOS platforms were surveyed. It was an in-depth interview about whether users need a digital detox – to give up permanent access to the Web at least for a short time – and under what conditions they are ready to go for it. It turned out that almost everyone needs a detox. But almost no one is ready for a complete rejection of devices. Only a few agree to undergo a detox, but only in certain situations (for example, during a vacation) and then with the opportunity to return to the Network as needed. That is, conditionally: go to the beach without a smartphone, but know that when you return to your room, a device with access to mail and instant messengers will be waiting in the safe.

Why are we so attached to smartphones? Google researchers have identified several reasons.

Why can’t we live without gadgets

1. We want to be as productive as possible, wherever we are. At the same time, have you noticed that you feel guilty when you spend time aimlessly? For example, procrastinating on social media and YouTube instead of completing work tasks? Google respondents also admitted to feeling guilty when they realized they had spent much more time checking their social media than they had planned.
2. We think we should respond to the message urgently. Modern people have the feeling that there is some kind of social contract that requires you to respond to messages as quickly as possible and at any time. In reality, however, there is no agreement. But at the same time, we begin to worry even at the stage of sending a message: “how quickly will I get a response?” Conversely, when we receive a message, we feel the need to send a response as soon as possible. This “rather” can mean different values. For some it’s literally minutes, for others it’s hours. The most patient believe that it is permissible to respond within a day. These are all signs of a digital addiction.
3. We are not ready to give up mobile devices even during the holidays. If a person is left without a device due to the fact that he forgot it at home / at work or lost it, he plunges into serious stress: “without a phone, it’s like without hands!”

Most have anxiety that loved ones will lose them out of sight. This problem can be partially solved by reporting that temporarily without communication. But secondly, there is a “fear of missing out” (FOMO for short) — a person feels cut off from the virtual part of his life. For some, its value significantly exceeds the value of real life.

What to do

Google experts recommend several tricks that will help, if not completely get rid of digital addiction, then at least achieve balance.

1. Optimize your mail and calendar. For example, in the mail, you can select the “Urgent” folder and set up notifications only for those letters that really require an immediate response.
2. Take small breaks during your work day. After 50 minutes of work at the table, walk 10 minutes along the corridor, talk with colleagues on abstract topics. It is also useful to rest your eyes, look out the window for a few minutes at objects in the distance – you will soon notice that your eyes are less tired by the end of the day.
3. Turn off social media notifications. Make it a rule to check them three times a day at certain times: for example, morning, afternoon and evening. The rest of the time they should not bother you. The same applies to messengers that are not related to work. Workers, on the contrary, turn off after the end of the working day until the beginning of the next. Agree, it is not so often that problems arise that must be solved by all means at 11 pm instead of going to bed or communicating with loved ones.
4. Trite, but true: you need to learn to focus on the important and stop procrastinating.
5. Give yourself the opportunity to completely disconnect from gadgets. For example, Sunday without devices is a great idea.
6. Remove apps you don’t use. Yes, just remove them! They have been “living” in your smartphone for months, or even years, idle, which means you simply don’t need them.

What programs will help achieve “balance”

To help those who are ripe for a digital detox, Google engineers have developed a number of solutions in the fresh Android 9 Pie operating system, as well as special applications.

1. Application usage tracker in Android 9 Pie – it shows how much time the user spends in social networks, interacts with mail and instant messengers. There’s also a Rest feature and Do Not Disturb mode that allow you to group or completely block visual notifications and even calls that may not be critical to you, such as at night. You can set up a black and white mode – it will turn on in the evening so that bright pictures, logos and notifications do not force you to pick up your smartphone again and again.
2. A good way to learn self-control and the ability to focus on a specific task is meditation. She does not need to specifically go to yoga and other practices. Headspace (Google Play, App Store), MindBall, Meditation for Beginners, Zenify will suffice.
3. For YouTube lovers, there are also deterrent features: you can set time limits on watching videos, adjust the frequency of push notifications, or collect them in a daily digest (or even disable them altogether).