For a while now, I’ve been unhappy about how easily I’m distracted by technology. When I get a minute of rest from playing with my kids/doing chores, I instantly reach for my phone. On the rare occasion when I score a couple of hours to write, I open up my laptop and stare at the 78 open tabs (on each of the 3 web browsers I use!) and become mired in research about presents I think I should buy, holidays I should finish organising, articles I bookmarked to read months ago etc. Although I set limits on my children’s screen time, I don’t set any limits for myself. With precious little time for my own work and self-care these days, I need to make the most of what I have.
That’s why, this January, I’m doing a 30-day digital detox, as outlined by Cal Newport in his book Digital Minimalism. For me, this means no web browsing (unless it’s for essentials). For good measure, I’m going to swear off social media for a month too (no more scrolling through Instagram while sitting on the toilet). Email isn’t a source of distraction for me, so I’m going to keep checking emails at certain times of the day (10am, lunchtime, 3pm). WhatsApp sits in a grey area – the conversations about the pandemic and politics are definitely distracting, but it’s also the chief way I organise play dates and catch-ups with friends. One solution would be to turn off all notifications and only allow myself to check WhatsApp at certain times of the day (10am and lunchtime, for example). Or I could go hardline and delete the app completely and either use my husband to relay messages to me, or ask my friends to contact me via text message instead. TBC…
There are two reasons for the month-long detox:
1. To break the compulsive urge to check my screen at the slightest hint of boredom (guilty as charged!).
2. To get back in touch with what I actually value in life.
As Cal Newport writes: “The alluring noise emanating from our screens provides an easy distraction from the bigger questions about what really matters; what we want to do with [our] limited time here on earth. This month-long reprieve provides the space needed to revisit these questions, and through both self-reflection and experimentation, form some tentative answers.”
Newport says it’s important to plan ahead to ensure you fill the void left by technology with higher-quality activities, so here’s what I hope to do in the time I’d normally be wasting on my phone/laptop:
Reading books and magazines,
Engaging with my children,
Craft projects (e.g. knitting and origami),
Meditating,
Going for walks,
Journalling,
Thinking deeply about my novel.
Thinking deeply about my novel is what I’m really striving for. With a frenetic toddler and lots of cancelled daycare days recently due to sickness/Covid exposure, I rarely get time to dive deep and solve story issues related to plot or theme. When I do, it takes me a while to “get in the zone”, and if I get side-tracked with “research” and go down an internet rabbit hole, I lose my focus and the allotted time is lost. Emails, surfing the web and watching videos are examples of shallow work that pull me out of deep concentration and hinder my ability to dream up big ideas and hit my flow state (check out my blog on this).
I’ve been thinking about doing a digital detox for a while, but a turning point came when I read that we wake up with a finite reserve of willpower each day (which is why people who want to get fit are told to exercise first thing each day, and why writers are told to write in the mornings). Each decision we make (should I buy the dancing unicorn for my niece or something else?) chips away at that reserve until we get “decision fatigue” and revert to doing the easiest task on our list – e.g. organising a rental car for our summer trip instead of doing our most important work. This is why Obama only wears blue or grey suits – “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” If I cut out my ability to browse the web, I won’t be tempted to make those hundreds of decisions that seem so important, but really aren’t.
The idea behind the digital detox is not to give up these technology habits forever, but to only reintroduce the ones that truly add meaning to your life and can’t be achieved any other way (e.g. many people say Facebook is a great way to stay in touch with people, but you can also do that by picking up the phone and having a chat), and to reintroduce them with limits – e.g. only using them at a certain time of day (installing an app such as Freedom to block websites at certain times is a good way to manage it), or having a separate computer for web browsing. There are laws that limit the sale of alcohol before midday on Sundays in New York, and many countries ban junk food advertising to children, so why not limit other addictive behaviours such as surfing the web?
Newport has been described as the “Marie Kondo of technology”, and it’s true that his approach fundamentally mimics hers: dump everything out of your digital toolbox and only add back the stuff that “sparks joy”.
So, starting from tomorrow (January 2), I’m deleting all browsers and social media apps from my phone and laptop. If I really need to use a browser I’m going to annoy my husband and use his phone/laptop instead.
Come February, I’ll weigh up the good and the bad and decide what to reintroduce and with what kind of limits. Stay tuned.