Switching Off

There’s a lot in the media at the moment about how addicted we have become to our tech – especially our phones. Lots of people are advocating a digital detox – either full blown unplugging or at least having rules about not using your phone at meal times etc. It’s true that I often look around train carriages or sometimes even my own living room and all I can see is people looking down at their phones. In my living room’s case I don’t actually believe that it is an anti-social thing – it often prompts discussion with my friends or family as we are all reading out things from Twitter etc.

But then it’s also true that the way we experience things has changed. If you haven’t taken a photograph of the set for Live at the Apollo when you first enter the auditorium, did it even happen? I’ve seen some interesting comments from people who attended Chris Rock’s tour recently – it seems like people enjoyed the show through their own eyes rather than through the screen of their phone or worse, trying to desperately get signal to be able to Instagram story, Facebook Live or Periscope it. Perhaps there is room for Yondr at all events.

I’ve worked in and with tech since 1998 when I did a placement year with Vodafone France in Paris. I had a mobile phone before that – a total brick for emergencies when I got my girl racer MG Metro aged 17 but I can’t really remember using it. I still used to queue for the payphone in my halls at Uni and I didn’t even use the internet that much for my degree, it was all about the journals in the library. But from 1998 I was far more immersed in mobile. From Uni I went to work for Orange for 7 years and as my phone screens got bigger, my messaging capability grew. Then there was WAP – anyone remember that? The first version of the web on mobile! Since then I have gone on to work for lots of brands on their digital strategy. Now as a digital consultant I manage several social media accounts for clients, as well as being permanently on the platforms to both stay abreast of change and also just because I really enjoy them. I’ve had some great times on Twitter especially. Living alone, you can still have a laugh watching things like the Brits when Madonna fell over, chatting away to people across the nation. The beauty is, you can be sociable but you don’t have that awkward bit at the end of the night when you are ready for them to leave and they haven’t picked up the hint!

I just did a count and I have 236 apps on my phone – 8 email accounts, 8 Twitter accounts, 16 Facebook pages and, as I’m sure you can imagine, countless notifications all day every day. We think nothing of recharging our phone and laptop batteries throughout the day because they are processing so much information, yet we wonder why we get so tired ourselves. My brain is juggling all of the same information so it’s no surprise really. When do we take time to recharge?

For the most part my phone doesn’t stress me out. I always say to clients when they are looking to recruit digital talent, especially to cover social media, that you need someone who genuinely enjoys being on it so then they don’t end up feeling like they are working all the time. Some of my clients joke that I am ‘always watching’, and it’s true that I usually pick things up pretty quickly. I’ve worked with people in the past who, if they had just posted on social media and I called them, would answer the phone with ‘should I delete it?’. I’m not always watching individuals specifically, I’m just immersed in the platforms.

I know that people say that being on your screens late at night can impact your sleep. I look at mine last thing at night and first thing in the morning and I know for a fact that it doesn’t impact my sleep as I track it on my Fitbit and can check that I am getting good quality zeds. See, my whole life is digitally tracked!

On the rare occasions that I have been without my phone in the last 20 years, it really highlights to me how much I use it. Recently I had to take it in to Apple to get a new battery fitted – in the hour that I killed around Westfield there were countless times that I reached for it. See something funny in a shop window – reach for camera, realise I don’t have it, wish I could write a note to remind me of this for a blog, wonder if there is a certain shop in the centre, reach for my phone to google etc. ad infinitum. Some people say that we can become slaves to technology, but for me technology is my servant. For example, last week I was working in Zurich and staying in a hotel. Thanks to my phone I could set off for a stroll into town in the evening to wind down after a long day (and bank my 10k steps of course), knowing that I could find my way back with Google Maps and if I went too far I could just get an Uber. Without the phone I would probably have just stayed in my room all night.

In April I turn 40 and I'm seeing this as an opportunity to re-evaluate my life and decide on my goals for the future. I really enjoy running my own business and will have been doing that for 3 years by then. I love all the communication and commercial opportunities that digital brings. It has also helped me to get fitter with apps like My Fitness Pal and Fitbit. But I could be healthier in both body and mind. As a small business owner I know that I am my most valuable asset and I have to look after myself. So at the start of March I'm taking myself off for a week to reboot. I am switching my phone off during this break. One worry that these detox suggestions bring me is how I will be contactable if anything happens to the people I love – so they will know where I am and how to get me in an emergency but apart from that I will be totally uncontactable. My Mum isn’t super keen as we usually speak everyday but I know that if I don’t switch off totally, the temptation to just flick Wi-Fi on will be too much!

This is a massive deal for me after 20 years of having a phone by my side. I’m having to sort out an iPod and camera – I haven’t needed them for years as phones have got so advanced. And I’ve been preparing 4 weeks out from this unplugging to make sure that all my clients are still covered while I'm away. Social Media never switches off and I do worry that I might miss some big things but I have a phone full of over 2,000 screenshots of good and bad examples of social media that I use in training or creative sessions with clients already, so I think if I miss a week I will probably be ok!

It’s a bit of an odd one in that I want to document my week so that I can share what I experience but obviously this won’t be a series of tweets or an insta story as I will be offline. So I have a lovely new notebook which I will handwrite and then publish at a later time.

Not sure how I am going to get on – my biggest fear is that I won’t ever want to switch on again, and then I will have to come up with a whole new career! But I think it’s far more likely that the reboot will mean I can close down a lot of metaphorical tabs, clear my cookies and history and come back running a lot faster! Tweet you on the other side!

Read my other blogs at www.katehamer.com