Work-life-technology is the new work-life balance

For those that know me well, you will appreciate that technology plays a big part in my life. I tend to be a first adopter on new technologies and would certainly describe myself as an ‘Apple fanboy’. Technology plays a big part in making my life simpler and more fun.

That said, over the past few weeks I have been experimenting with digital detoxes. It started because I was mortified by the amount of time that I was spending on my iPhone and my iPad. Before the new ‘Screen Time’ feature in iOS 12, I was naive to the proportion of my life that was being devoted on technology distractions.

Indeed, Ive started to think that the new work:life balance has a third leg in this modern era: technology. A person is a far better holistic individual, if they can balance the needs of work, life and technology.

Technology is good at fighting back however, and the single biggest improvement Ive made is to ruthlessly review each apps’ use of notifications to a point where the only notification I now allow, albeit sparingly, is the little badge icon on applications. This has broken an important relationship between myself and my iPhone and iPad: the ability for those devices to distract me and take my attention away from other things.

As Ive become more aware of the burden of technology, Ive started to notice more and more research on the topic. Indeed one of my favourite applications for mindfulness is Calm. They have a masterclass series called ‘Social Media and Screen Addiction’ which ironically I've become addicted to over the past couple of days. One memorable section in the series is when Dr Adam Alter suggests that technology may be contributing to reduced boredom but this has an unintended consequence as the brain uses boredom as a catalyst for innovation.  Perhaps technology is making our lives too easy.