Essentialism 101: Digital Detox

Thank You...

for being here. Before you get on with the article, I would encourage you to read my previous article on this topic for better congruency.

1. Keep it Simple, Silly

Now, let's get started with the topic of the post.

Introduction

I think that mobile and communication technologies are wonderful. It is becoming increasingly hard to remember life before technology was ubiquitous but surprisingly, human beings were doing just fine without the hyperconnectivity, the constant updates, and mindless browsing hours on end too.

So, let's explore some suggestions which can be tried to declutter our digital lives. As mentioned in the previous post, these are merely suggestions for you to consider (and experiment with), this is not an exam nor an evaluation. Each one of us needs to find what works for us.

Mobile Devices

• Uninstall: Browse your app drawer and uninstall apps that you haven't used in a month. Don't worry, it takes less than a few minutes to reinstall them back (in case of an "emergency") so you are really not losing much except being forced to clear the clutter. Try to do it in a phase-wise manner instead of doing it in a single sitting. Not only will it clear up resources on your phone, but it'll also likely improve your battery life.
• Disable Notifications: If you have done the previous step sincerely, this step should be relatively easy. You can again do it in a phase-wise manner over a few days or weeks (gentle approach) or you can go all out (commando mode) and disable notifications globally (except calls of course). Another approach could be to wait for an app to generate a notification, check if this is the kind of notification that is "essential", if not, disable it then and there so that you are only "muting" one app at a time. Gradually, the number of notifications will go down, your device will hang less, run smoother, and "magically" the battery will also last longer. Also, (hopefully), you'll start to realize that the world is still spinning quite well without the deluge of notifications that every app thinks you need every few minutes. Don't worry, you can always find the app in your drawer (or play store) when you really need it, so, you are really not missing out on much by disabling the notifications. Remember, the idea is to be intentional when and how you wish to give your time/energy/attention to an app and not let it capture your time/energy/attention on demand. Try it, it's not as bad as it sounds.
• Separate Devices: Do not use your primary device for content consumption or social media. You can limit your primary phone to the essentials i.e. communication, learning, courses, commute, etc. Have a separate device for social media (if you must), browsing, shopping, movies, etc.
• Youtube: This has been my Achilles' heel largely because I also do most of my learning on youtube. If I have to learn any topic, I typically try to find as much content on the subject on youtube, subscribe to relevant publishers, etc, and binge-watch. However, I also end up wasting a lot of time on youtube as an addiction. Took me a lot of time to get a hold of this challenge.

1. Check your subscriptions and eliminate the unproductive ones. If you are unsure about unsubscribing (because you think you might need it someday), just save one video from the channel in a playlist so that you can easily find it in the future (if needed).
2. Again, notifications are not really needed no matter how much the author prompts you to "click the bell icon".
3. Try not to use youtube (and social media) for news because youtube learns from your behavior and it might show you things that it "thinks" that you wish to see. So, if you watch some negative news videos, it might start prompting you to consume more of such content. Disable history or clear history from time to time
4. Use applications (Samsung has an inbuilt setting for app wise daily limits) to put daily limits on youtube (just like any other apps)
5. Disable auto-play unless you want the videos to go on forever.

• Increase Resistance: It is amazing that inventions that were meant to improve our lives are now forcing us to invent creative ways to curb their influence. We must appreciate the fact that a lot of brainpower and talent has gone into designing the digital ecosystem that is turning us into addicts (read: users) unless we try to restore some semblance of balance. So, let us accept it is hard and get some help by increasing resistance.

1. Disable WiFi at least 1~2 hours before going to bed and don't turn it on in the morning unless absolutely necessary. If you are "lucky" like me, a mobile internet connection might not be as stable/reliable to "allow" a smooth video/ott experience. Also, even with the proliferation of Jio, there are (typically) daily data limits, so, you might get a prompt after a while. The point is that you have to be intentional about "why do I need high-speed internet?" Sometimes, the added effort of turning on the Wifi and waiting for it to connect can make you change your mind.
2. I would even try to go days without renewing my internet connection every month and see how many days could I manage with no high-speed internet or just on mobile internet.
3. Don't keep your phone at arm's length when you go to bed. Keep it as far away as possible.
4. If you are trying to get some serious work done, disable the internet. If possible put your phone anywhere out of arm's length or out of sight. Try the Pomodoro techniques. For me, it takes quite some amount of uninterrupted time before I can get into the "Flow" state.
5. If you "must" access social media, browse, or shop, do not use the mobile apps. Use your desktop/laptop to access the websites and get your work done.
6. I tried youtube premium for some time, it was simply amazing (totally worth it) but it got me hooked again so now, I am back to letting youtube "irritate" me with ads so that mindless browsing is automatically interrupted and I give up much sooner.
7. You can also try using blue light filters on your devices. In addition to reducing the strain on your eyes, these have the added "benefit" of making the screens less appealing/addicting.

Social Media is Anti Social

I understand that my views on social media might seem a little harsh to some people, which is fine, we each need to customize our individual approaches. I think it would be instructive for people to check out the documentary "The Social Dilemma" to understand why I am off almost every social media platform, LinkedIn is probably my only poison of choice currently.

People don't realize that there was a time before hyperconnected social media existed. I guess Gen Z was fortunate to experience the different phases of social media:

1. No social media, no email, no messaging days
2. Orkut days, with desktop-only versions only. Low internet penetration also helped limit the explosion of Orkut, messenger apps, etc.
3. Early Facebook days
4. Social media explosion and the degeneration

So, Gen Z can at least reference simpler times. For Gen Y, who grew up with access to high-speed internet and mature social media, the challenge is understandably much harder. Here are some of my thoughts on social media:

• Put social media to use instead of being a slave to it. Use it to follow mentors/role models (not actors), for hobbies/activities, for networking (early touchpoints), or maybe for growing a business but be intentional about how you wish to leverage it as a tool and limit it to that.
• Unfollow/hide any content/channel that is unproductive or negative. Remember, the system is designed to keep you glued to the screen, if you indicate your preference for productive/positive content, the system will serve you more of it. Ultimately, you are in charge of the hygiene of your feed.
• Do not mistake "connections" and "followers" for friendships. It takes years to develop deep, meaningful relationships and friendships which is also what makes them valuable. You don't need thousands, you only need very few (but high-quality) relationships to have a great life.
• Understand that the beautiful photos, rich lives of people that you see on social media are largely illusions. Most often, what we see is a highly curated, heavily filtered mirage that everybody is trying to share hoping to stand out and get likes and validation. We are social creatures, the opinions of others matter but when we consume "highlight reels" of others' lives mindlessly, our minds will create a juxtaposition of the "perfect" lives of everybody we are "connected" with and by comparison, make us feel inadequate and unfulfilled. Here's a secret, real life, real relationships are messy and far less than picture-perfect. Stop letting the 0.01% of somebody's life rob you of your little joys. Joy can really be found in the smallest of things (try taking a walk at 5 a.m with a cool breeze blowing, leaves rustling, birds chirping, no horns, no traffic, no music) if you stop comparing your life with that of other mortals who are just as (maybe more) insecure and normal as you are.
• Do not use Social Media as your primary source of news. If you wish to stay up to date, use a newspaper or reputed newspaper websites only. Social media amplifies the type of posts that you have "liked" earlier so you are never getting objective news on social media. It is just a rabbit hole that the system has custom-designed for you. Everybody's rabbit hole is different so, we end up in silos which just creates a strange situation where reality is no longer universally objective. So, stick to sources that do not customize articles based on tracking you and your history. How much "breaking news" do you really need anyway?
• Focus on developing real hobbies, real connections, exploring real interests, learning/improving real skills. All these things require effort, focus, and time but they can bring you long-term, deeply meaningful happiness. And maybe, then, you'll have something to share, not to make people jealous but hopefully to inspire.

Make sure your Offline life is just as EPIC as your Online Avatar

Communication

This will include emails and messaging applications.

Emails are my preferred mode of communication especially when it comes to office work. People intuitively understand that email is formal communication so typically (surprisingly, not always), you can expect the sender to have put in some amount of effort clarifying what is it that he/she wants. On the other hand, messaging and calls can be extremely inefficient for information transfer and also run the risk of miscommunication. I am not getting into email etiquette here, I will stick to how to eliminate email overload as my OCD never lets me have "un-read" emails in my inbox, so, it has required a lot of effort :(

• Report Spam aggressively. Self-explanatory. Any random email, from a random sender, goes to the spam folder.
• Unsubscribe aggressively. This was especially important because I kept getting emails from random places which I might have signed up for or from companies where I created logins (and submitted my email ID). Most were marketing emails and I would get a whole bunch of these, bright and early, every morning. I started by unsubscribing anything and everything that wasn't relevant. Gradually, my inbox started getting clean. Now, I only get emails from the subscriptions that I do wish to follow and bank mails (have to figure this out).
• Work-related emails were trickier to handle. I use labels a lot especially for things that I need to get back to but a lot of traffic was essentially coming from being put in cc without any apparent reason even from teams that weren't directly reporting to me. So, the only real choice was to "politely" request to be left out of the thread and be consistent about it. You don't want to be rude but you really do need to be firm about this.
• Batching: The good thing about emails and messages is that they are typically never "URGENT" regardless of what the sender might think. So, if you check your email and messenger app periodically (let's say once in 2 hours), you'll still be able to respond to the important things instead of being constantly interrupted whenever a new message/email is received. The frequency will need to be adjusted based on your work responsibilities but I am sure that a working solution can be found for almost everybody. Handling a lot of emails/messages at once is quite easy once you develop the habit. It is more efficient, and a lot less mentally taxing.

Remember, in the knowledge economy, you are paid for the value you bring, not how busy you appear so protecting your ability to think, focus, solve problems creatively has a very high ROI.

Digital Interventions

I like to use the following apps to keep tabs on my phone usage.

• Forest This is essentially an implementation of the Pomodoro technique and I quite like it.
• Focus This app can help you set goals for daily usage (time) and the number of unlocks
• App Usage: Tracker This app can help you check a whole host of data along with app-wise usage and statistics.
• Samsung (other brands might have something similar as well also has an in-built Digital Wellbeing setting where you can add daily time limits for individual apps.
• Twilight This app is a blue light filter for your mobile. As mentioned earlier, it can reduce the strain on your eyes as well as make the mobile viewing experience a little less appealing.

Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle

Most well-off people I know are privileged enough to talk about planetary sustenance, protecting Nature. However, when I see people focusing so much on recycling, I feel they are hopelessly missing the bigger picture.

If we just look at Nature, there is no wastage, everything is endlessly recyclable. Air, food, rain, animals, plants, there is absolutely no wastage. Nothing (to my limited knowledge) that Nature produces/creates is non-recyclable endlessly and hence the ecosystem is sustainable.

Unfortunately, whenever, the most intelligent being on the planet "produces" something, he fundamentally changes the raw inputs in a way that can (almost) never go back to its original form again. This means that almost everything we produce is never fully recyclable. If we truly want to be climate-conscious, the only real solution is to Reduce (mindless) consumption, Reuse (as much as possible), Repair (believe it or not, it is possible), and only then Recycle (as much as possible).

Planned obsolescence is another wonderful creation of capitalism. Do watch this documentary, it is about bulb manufacturers but the same principle is applicable to almost every product being manufactured today. Manufacturers want to give you the best product, but they don't want to make it long-lasting (by design). So, the only real choice we have is to vote with our wallets.

Conclusion

The purpose of the post is not to become a Digital pariah but to bring some intentionality into our usage of electronic devices and consumption of electronic media. I am an engineer at heart, I love technology but I honestly believe that technology needs to solve real problems, not become an agent of chaos. Human reward systems are evolutionarily rooted in doing tough things, snacking on social media mindlessly will only end up making us very ill. Moreover, if we run a rough estimate, the amount of time that we have outside of work and essentials is not a lot. The opportunity cost of not using the leftover time productively can be extremely high. So, the need of the hour is to take charge of our digital lives. Use technology intentionally, it really can be a wonderful tool, unfortunately, it most definitely is a lousy master.

I think that a discussion on Habits and Focus might be useful here but that's a huge topic in itself so I'll postpone it for later.

As always, do share your comments and feedback. If you have some "suggestions" that you can share with the readers, that would be much appreciated so don't hold back.

Read Next >>

I hope I could do justice to the time you have just invested. If you wish to explore more, I have linked the next article below for easy reference:

• Essentialism 101: De-cluttering Life

References

• Start Here
• Bored and Brilliant
• The Social Dilemma
• This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things