Why I'm seeking digital balance and choosing to use technology more mindfully

I suppose that it’s no coincidence that my concern about technology use coincides with me creeping towards fifty - although with there only being three years left until I reach that milestone, who am I kidding that I’m creeping towards it? Our (life)time is limited. Even if we get to live to a ripe old age, who knows how healthy we’ll be in those final years? So, when we choose to scroll on our phone today, what are we choosing not to do with our limited and valuable time? Although when we get sucked into a social media vortex, it’s rarely because we made a conscious decision to spend our time that way. More often than not, we might have sought distraction or entertainment to relieve boredom/stress/just being by ourselves and that snowballs into a longer period of time than we intended. Conscious choice or not, the big question (for me at least) is…

Will we regret the time lost to our digital devices later in life?

Personally, I want to avoid that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-technology. Far from it! I’m a computational biologist, which means that I spend most of my working day programming and analysing data. I also live in a different country to my parents and sister, so I’m grateful that technology enables me to keep in touch with them much more easily than decades before. When we lived abroad for a short stint in my teenage years we actually recorded cassette tapes to send to my grandparents as it was so expensive to phone!

However, I do feel the need to push back from technology and reclaim my attention. So much so, that I took a course to understand how technology impacts us as individuals and as society as a whole. I loved learning again and came away having absorbed a tonne of theory on the topic and armed with coaching skills to help other people like me who are seeking digital balance. Plus I’ve made significant changes to my own digital habits by choosing to use technology more mindfully. I kicked my phone out of my bedroom at night, setting up a charging station in our hallway. No more scrolling in bed which has the added bonuses of reading more and falling asleep more easily. I also now try to put my phone away for periods of the day. The phrase ‘out of sight, out of mind’ really does ring true in this case. But I think digital balance is a bit like eating healthily. It takes some planning, mindfulness and can go out the window when we’re feeling tired, stressed or down. Which means that we shouldn’t beat ourselves up when we revert back to our unhealthy habits but take stock of what we need to tweak to build ourselves up for success. I’ll be addressing that in a future post.

If you find yourself scrolling in bed before sleep or after you wake up, it might be time to consider buying yourself an alarm clock and making your bedroom a phone-free sanctuary. You'll not only cut down on scrolling but will be likely to feel more rested too.

I will be posting once a week on digital wellbeing topics with the hope that they will be helpful for other people seeking digital balance.

If you’ve read this, thank you! I’d love to hear from you and welcome your feedback.

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