Who is in control? Tech or humans?

In his latest book “Digital Minimalism — living better with less technology” Cal Newport believes Social Media and our increasingly digital lives are wreaking havoc with our autonomy, our ability to concentrate on work or even have a meaningful existence.

So what is the truth here? Are humans in control of their lives or is tech now pulling the strings?

The data:

Ofcom’s report from August 2018 looks at the changes in digital dependency in the UK over the last ten years since smartphones started to infiltrate our lives.

• People in the UK now check their smartphones, on average, every 12 minutes of the waking day.
• Two in five adults (40%) first look at their phone within five minutes of waking up, climbing to 65% of those aged under 35.
• Similarly, 37% of adults check their phones five minutes before lights out, again rising to 60% of under-35s.
• 1 in 5 adults states they spend over 40 hours a week online.
• 78% of adults say they could not live without their phone.

If us Britons are checking our phones every 12 minutes I’d hazard a guess we are not now in control.

Social Media

Cal Newport’s Tedx talk explains why we should quit social media. He states that “social media is like a slot machine … it offers you shiny treats in exchange for minutes of your attention and bytes of your personal data that can then be packaged up and sold…. (These companies) hire Attention Engineers to try to make these products as addictive as possible to maximise the profit that can be extracted from your attention and data.”

I think deep down we all realise that this is true. Facebook is not the product, we are.

HumaneTech summarise this problem succinctly:

Unfortunately, what’s best for capturing our attention isn’t best for our well-being:

- Snapchat turns conversations into streaks, redefining how our children measure friendship.
- Instagram glorifies the picture-perfect life, eroding our self-worth.
- Facebook segregates us into echo chambers, fragmenting our communities.
- YouTube autoplays the next video within seconds, even if it eats into our sleep.

Digital Minimalism:

As people are beginning to realise that their lives are becoming out of balance the Digital Minimalism movement is gaining exposure and attention.

Cal Newport defines it as “A philosophy that helps you question what digital communication tools (and behaviours surrounding these tools) add the most value to your life. It is motivated by the belief that intentionally and aggressively clearing away low-value digital noise, and optimising your use of the tools that really matter, can significantly improve your life.”

This concept is not new. The minimalist movement generally has been around for many years. Minimalism is about making room mentally and physically for the things you love and benefit you and eliminating those things that distract us from our purpose.

So how should we use tech?

Tech is our servant, not our master.

We need to interact with technology intentionally. It should be used for a purpose — to create something or assist us. To provide a solution to problems. To create spare time for us to live more mindfully; to appreciate our friends and family in the real world and the environment around us.

So how can we do this?

Firstly we need to realise when tech is controlling us and not the other way around. Use software apps such as iOS 12’s Screentime or RescueTime etc to report back on how much time you are personally spending on social media sites, youtube etc.

Once you see the data in figures you may be more motivated to tackle the problem.

Cal Newport recommends starting from scratch “Clear it all out. Step away for 30 days. Get back in touch with what you really care about, what you want to spend your time on, and when you’re done with the 30 days, rebuild that digital life from scratch — but do it this time with real intention.”

Whilst I’d love to be able to commit to this, I think this for me is probably too extreme. There are smaller measures that we can take to help readdress the balance:

• Question the value of constantly checking your email / social media. Are you just bored, is it just something to fill spare time?
• Give yourself alternatives — pack a good book or your kindle for those bored moments instead. Or strike up a conversation with people around you whilst you’re waiting.
• Ignore any digital distractions (includes email) until say 11am when you have managed to eat the frog of the day or get something meaningful done.
• Go back to an old fashioned alarm clock and leave your phone downstairs so you don’t check social media first thing in bed.
• Remove social media apps from your phone and only look at them on your computer
• If you can’t bring yourself to remove social media apps completely from your phone, at least move them to another screen so they don’t leap out at you.
• Turn off all notifications for email and all social media accounts on your phone. Don’t be a slave to the “ping”.
• Give yourself regular time slots to check social media / email and stick with those times only.
• Spend one evening a week with the family where all tech, including TV, is banned. Have an extended dinner, play board games, chat or simply read a book.
• If you want to keep up to date with news use a news aggregator such as Feedly to help you be selective about what to read. Tools like these make it possible for you to quickly scan headlines and full stories at a glance from a variety of different providers. They help to avoid you disappearing down news wormholes….

We may be reducing our productivity being enslaved to tech but ultimately it is our mental well-being that is at stake here.

Cal Newport states that losing the time to reflect and be alone with your thoughts is “one of the biggest undetected consequences of what we’ve engineered in this digital age.” There is no chance to reset your mind.

Tech has much to offer us and is to be embraced. However, for the sake of our health and well-being, we need to reassess how we use tech and make sure that it lives in balance with our lives, rather than dominates.