Digital Dependence
As I’m writing this, I currently have 15,665 unread emails in my inbox and trust me, I have tried go through a delete them all but it’s a futile task. As soon as I delete 100 emails, 100 new unread emails load into my inbox. Most of it is spam, but enough of it is school-related or may contain important documents I forgot to download, that I have to at least skim through the emails before I press that delete button — so I have yet to commit to clicking the delete all unread emails button. Instead, I have learned to work around it, ignoring the old unread messages and delete all the new spam mail as it comes in. The amount of information being pushed to my phone on a daily basis was really amplified when I went to college and joined a sorority. I’m no longer in the organization, but I still remember the adjustment period I had to go through. I became accustom to receive 20+ important emails a week, all of which needed my attention as soon as possible, on top of spam emails, work emails and school emails. I had to adapt to my changing environment as it became extremely important for me to be constantly checking my inbox, my Facebook notifications, and my Canvas notifications just to stay on top of my day-to-day responsibilities. So many other girls my age were able to keep track of everything so effortlessly, while it took me a month or so to really get the hang of it. Now these skills are embedded into me and I think that’s for the better. Do I really want to be spending so much time on my phone, checking my email? No, not in the slightest, but I’ve been trained to check my email religiously, at least once an hour, and at this point it eases my anxiety to know what’s in my inbox and to respond to people as soon as possible. I feel in the loop on group assignments, projects, and with school.
Although there are some positives to having digital habits, there are definitely some concerns. I feel more dependent on my technology than I do feel in control of my technology and I see that as an issue. I fall victim to the big tech company’s addictive designs every time I log onto Tik Tok. The thing with Tik Tok is that your feed is designed around your interests, is constantly changing as you like or swipe past videos, and once it refreshes it’s basically impossible to find the old videos on your feed since SO many new videos have loaded. I would tell myself “this is the last video I’m going to watch, then I’m going to get up and do x, y and z” then, once the video was over, I would INSTINCTIVELY swipe up and the next video would start playing and I would become instantly hooked. I caught myself doing that so many times, that I eventually just deleted the app from my phone. I’ve done the same for the Twitter app as well. That’s one good habit I have, is boundary setting. When I can tell that I’m spending too much time on an app, I’ll delete it to force myself to take a break from it. However there are certain apps that I will excuse because I believe they have a purpose (like Pinterest) however, I’m unsure how much time I’m spending on apps like Pinterest are actually purposeful or if it’s more of a time-waster.
TOP APPS FOR THE WEEK OF NOV. 15–22:
- Pinterest (5h 16m)
- Instagram (5h 14m)
- Netflix (2h 54m)
TOP APPS FOR THE WEEK OF NOV. 22–29:
- Pinterest (4h 23m)
- Netflix (4h 14m)
- Instagram (3h 26m)
TOP APPS FOR THE WEEK OF NOV. 29-DEC. 6:
- Instagram (7h 19m)
- CBS (3h 23m)
- Messages (1h 25m)
One thing I would like to work on is creating a healthy balance! I’m not that great at moderating my usage and managing my screen time without setting hard boundaries like deleting an app. I think one thing I could try is to limit my most used apps, like Instagram, and trying it limit the amount of time I spend in one sitting on the app as well as how many times I check it.
HEALTHY TECH GOALS:
- Aim to reduce screen time by 10% every week (See Fig 1)
- Monitor how long I’m spending time on my most frequented apps (i.e. Pinterest & Instagram) in one setting and overall
- Practice grounding techniques (especially on days where there is higher screen time usage)
- Slow down and take some walks without my phone
- Filter Digital Content: Get rid of the toxic content and bring attention to the content that brings joy (Instagram especially)
