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How to Make Technology Work for You
I open my inbox and check my email. Delete the Living Social promos. Delete the LinkedIn updates. Wait. Netflix just added a movie I might like. I glance at the movie title in the heading. It’s obscure and unappealing. I move on. (Phew! Dodged that one!) Oh, here’s something I care about: an email from a friend suggesting that we check out a new exhibition about China’s changing landscape. I scope out the exhibition website and the words “China’s cancer villages” catch my eye. What exactly are cancer villages? Do those really exist? It is my moral imperative to find out. I Google it and click on the first seemingly credible source. A third of the way through the article, a headline on the deadly right says “Thousands of dead, bloated pigs float down the river that supplies Shanghai with its drinking water.” What an image! I immediately click on the piece. This time I only look at the pictures and captions. Before I have time to process the sheer weight of this information, I get a group text. Someone has sent a Tumblr link to “Worst Cats”. They are pudgy and bald. Will I click? If not, it’s because I’ve then passed the baton over to social media in my race for digital consumption.
Although I take comfort in knowing how technology overload affects us collectively, I can’t help but wonder how this came to be. How did our time and attention become commodities in this market? According to research at the University of California, San Diego, the average person today consumes almost three times as much information as what the typical person consumed in 1960. Furthermore, The New York Times reports that the average computer user checks 40 websites a day and can switch programs 36 times an hour. We now spend more time skimming the surface of many more things. Multitasking has become a glorified term for rapid attention shifting, leaving us less than satisfied in all facets.
It helps to realize this: the state of constant availability and attention is the default setting on almost every device we buy, network we join, app we download, and website we visit. Leaving those defaults as is places us at the mercy of the digital vortex. We become servants to technology, rather than its commander in chiefs. Going cold turkey on technology isn’t sustainable either. While many have given testimonies about the healing power of digital detoxes, the problem is that these hiatuses do nothing to help us manage our digital existences the moment we plug back in. It’s not a matter of turning off your phone or abstaining from the internet entirely, but rather rethinking the role of technology and making it conform to our human intentions. We can program our devices to only interrupt us for things that we would willingly get interrupted for in real-time. We can also train ourselves to ignore the infinite sirens that prey on our time and yearn to profit off our digital footprint.
We each have our own information manifesto and connectivity system. However, here are a few ways you can regain control and use technology as an enabler:
Program your devices: There’s nothing wrong with setting your phone on silent (at least for personal use). All your messages will be there when you decide to check. Only use push notifications and text alerts for the handful of programs and people that you would willingly interrupt your work, sleep, and play for. It boils down to a few family members, close friends, and applications max. If you wouldn’t purposefully seek it out on your own, why succumb to it when it beeps? Remember, if you’re not making it accommodate your life, you’re working for it.
Cut the media out of socializing: Are connections that exist solely in the realm of social media & chat rooms meaningful to you? Plugging in to these platforms with the intention of socializing, actually leads to distractions, unnecessary emotions, and missed opportunities for real life engagement. The kind that yields meaning. You discover who’s really important when you sign off.
Cut the news, ignore click bait: News sites and perfectly crafted headlines will drown you. News is essentially the same every year, every month, every day. If you find yourself in a web deep dive (without depth of engagement), close all your tabs and listen to a podcast instead. If it’s of supreme interest, close the article and read a book on the topic. The important news will find you. Or your parents will bring it up at dinner.
Have you tried any of the approaches above? Share with us or better yet, tell a friend about it!
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