If you think you might be addicted to technology, you probably are. Why? Because we all are, it’s 2015 and our world is just bubbling with screens and machines and all things Internet. If you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of screens found in the average car today, or even just by the endlessness of your Gmail inbox, you are not alone. It may sound somewhat silly, but psychologists today are comparing our relationships with technology to our relationships with other humans.
Psychotherapist Katherine Schafler explains, “There are no healthy relationships without boundaries. So to have a relationship with digital media, you have to have boundaries too.” While it can feel so darn right to Netflix and chill sometimes, moderating our technology usage is vital, particularly because our world is becoming exponentially more digital each and every day. If you’ve ever had a broken phone for a week or gone camping off the grid, you’ve probably noticed the uplifting powers of unplugging.
Of course, completely giving up technology is not possible in this day and age, nor is it necessary. At the end of the day, technology benefits us more than it hinders us. Without television, we would not have access to breaking news. Without computers, we would be unable to communicate face-to-face with our friends or family members who live far away. Without phones, we would be unable to make spontaneous plans with people we are not physically with. You get the picture.
While we may need technology to keep pace with today’s society, we do not need it in high doses at all times. Professor David Ryan Polgar, author of Wisdom in the Age of Twitter, says, “We have an evolutionary bias towards constantly consuming information. This is analogous to our rise in obesity—unlimited food, like information, completely overwhelms our limited willpower.”
Technology usage need not be limited in areas in which it is not disrupting our lives. As for areas in which it is becoming troublesome, it is upon us to create boundaries for ourselves. If you find yourself staring at the brightly lit screen of your phone past your bedtime, make a goal to put it away 10 minutes earlier the next day. If your email is sucking up a portion of your chill time everyday, set aside a portion of time each day to deal with it and don’t allow yourself to look at it beyond that. Shafler advises, “Instead of thinking big, you think really small. Let’s say, you want to stop looking at Instagram. Your micro goal is to pick up your phone for a second in the morning, hold it, and encounter the thought, Okay, I want to stop doing this. But you don’t actually have to stop doing it.”
This is much easier said than done. Attempting to modify technology usage certainly does not always produce any results, but the act of even thinking about it plants a seed of change. Now, let’s get to it…before all of our lives turn into the movie Her.
Works Cited:
http://www.heraldnews.com/article/20131028/BLOGS/310289971
http://www.refinery29.com/zady/4#slide