Digital Detox – Reducing Screen Time and Improving Mental Health

June 16 04:41 2023 Print This Article

Overview

The convergence of Computing Devices, Internet and social media, is a deadly combination that is drastically increasing screen-time, and affecting the mental health of their users. This is a global phenomenon and not restricted to any particular country or strata of the society. Everyone alike who uses a device, seems to be suffering from this new epidemic called Digital Addiction.

Once considered a mere nuisance only, today, Digital Addiction is being regarded as a serious psychological or sociological problem that needs to be addressed quickly. From doctors to psychiatrists to educationists to policy-makers in the Government, people are coming up with solutions and remedies to tackle this malaise. Digital Detoxification (or Detox) is seen as a significant solution in this regard.

What is Digital Addiction?

The Covid-19 epidemic pushed the world’s population indoors for long stretches of time. Critical services that were required for a normal life were now available or rendered online. This included shopping, learning or schooling, and even working from home. This trend created many new businesses and acclimatised us to the new normal, where everything that one requires is available at the touch of a button.

The downside of this trend is that more and more people are turning away from activities previously enjoyed, and increasingly engaging with devices. A RedSeer report published in 2022 revealed that Indians (across age-groups) spend nearly 7.3 hours per day on devices (other than their core-work). This figure is 8 hours in the US. Teenagers and school children are the worst affected. Children and teenagers are spending anywhere between 5 to 9 hours a day on devices today. Whereas, adults are spending 3 to 4 hours a day, today, which is far higher than 3 or 5 years before.

Today, Digital Addiction (DA) is being treated on par with other addictions such as smoking, alcohol, drugs, gambling, watching pornography, etc.

Dangers of DA

The documented consequences of Digital Addiction include:

• Increased stress-levels: Digital Addiction implicitly pushes for, or promotes multi-tasking. While multi-tasking is a useful and necessary skill in modern-day living, when the same is taken out of context or out of proportion, it can increase stress. The need to respond, react or initiate something every minute can be taxing for the heart and brain.
• Disturbed and poor sleep: Blue-light present in sunlight turns on stress hormones in the brain, signalling the need for the person to be alert, or prepared for action. With sunset, the blue-light disappears, which turns off stress hormones in a natural way. However, blue-light emitted by devices restores stress hormones, creating long and intense spells of stress throughout one’s waking hours. Even if the person is not feeling stressed-out, physiologically or inside the body, stress is still at work. Stress hormones do not subside quickly, even after hitting bed, causing a downward spiral of poor sleep, more stress due to poor sleep, and so on. Poor sleep can lead to tangible workplace risks such as reduced communication skills, poor risk assessment and low creativity.
• Reduced productivity, absenteeism: Increased level of stress-hormones in the body combined with constant distraction from multiple devices can affect productivity or performance at work or school. Constant distraction can affect the person’s time-management skills, enthusiasm and motivation to complete tasks on time. Over time, the person can become indifferent to work, and voluntarily miss work or school every now and then.
• Work-life balance: The constant need to react or respond to mails and messages has stretched working hours significantly. This can affect one’s social, personal, family and marital lives, creating an imbalance or lopsided lifestyle that can trigger depression over time. While employers may understand this danger and tone down their expectations, for some people, the desire to be always-on has become an addiction.
• Distorted self-image: Social Media can be a world of make-believe. People are constantly posting images of positive or happy moments in their lives, while hiding the unpleasant. Not everyone understands this, and soon, one is drawn into the comparison game. Low self-esteem and feelings of inferiority, being unfortunate compared to others, or let down by the near and dear, can affect their self-image and even relationships with people.
• Fear of Missing Out (FOMO): The constant need to check on other’s lives on social media is driven by a phenomenon called FOMO. FOMO pushes people to ape, or imitate their peers in order to feel on par with them (or better than them). This can cause reckless spending, conflicts with family members over money, and hollow relationships built on the need to impress others.
• Weight-gain: Digital Addiction fuels mindless snacking, a tendency where one enjoys munching on or drinking something while engaging with devices.

Benefits of Digital Detox

The only solution to the problem, as of now, is Digital Detox. Digital Detox involves, consciously cutting down screen time, through various measures, in order to improve one’s mental health and overall life. This is not a passive approach but an active process that requires some discipline and commitment. The benefits of this activity are far-reaching.

• Improved Mental Health: Digital detoxing can restore focus in the person. This helps improve creativity and productivity while reducing anxiety and stress.
• Better Sleep: Cutting down blue-light from screens a few hours before sleep can restore healthy sleep-patterns and improve the quality of sleep.
• Enhanced Relationships: Committing to spend quality time with friends and family is often appreciated by them. This helps improve the quality of relationships with time.
• Increased Productivity: By consciously cutting down on distractions from various devices, one’s ability to concentrate, prioritize and focus improves, which in turn improves performance at work, school, or leisure activities.
• Improved Physical Health: Digital Addiction promotes unhealthy postures that can stress the neck, back, eyes, hands and fingers, creating ailments over time. Cutting down screen time helps restore one’s health gradually. Stress also causes digestive disorders.

How is Digital Detox done?

More and more people are waking up to and acknowledging the real dangers of Digital Addiction, and the tangible benefits of Digital Detox (DD), today. In response, there are various DD therapies and programs being promoted today, depending on the extent of one’s problem, their vocation, and unique challenges in their personal, family or social life. However, there are some strategies or tips common to all.

At the workplace

• Hold no-tech/low-tech meetings: If you are a team-lead or team member, suggest and enforce meetings where associates are not allowed to look at devices while the meeting is on. People who must and should attend to a call or email urgently, must leave the meeting room. Meetings should be scheduled in advance, so that people are not stressed out by sudden disruptions in their schedule, and the need to check devices during the meeting. Meetings should also have a clear start and end time.
• Encourage regular screen-breaks: Employees/associates should be encouraged to use the email and telephonic conversations alone, as the primary source of communication all through the day. Use of other apps and devices should be restricted to a maximum of 5 minutes, after every 1 hour, and never once during that hour.
• Encourage no-tech holidays or weekends: If one’s nature of work is such that they must be always on, or connected even during holidays and weekends, so be it. However, everybody else should be encouraged to spend a holiday or weekends without colleagues disrupting them over one or more devices. Colleagues desiring a disruption should suggest one or 2 alternate schedules for such conversations.
• Hire a corporate wellness coach: If low productivity and digital addiction is rampant at the workplace, the company should engage a wellness or productivity coach who will design a Digital Detox strategy for the workplace.

At home, or during personal time

• Bedtime restrictions: The hour before going to bed should be free of engagement with any device, including the TV. One should read a book, listen to an audio book or engage in household chores instead. This will reduce stress levels, and induce good sleep.
• No tech-zones: Specific areas of the home like the kitchen, dining-room and bathrooms should be no-tech zones. Family members should avoid taking the phone there. In the bedroom, the previous point will apply.
• Regular screen breaks: Similar to the workplace, there should be frequent intervals of screen-breaks. For example, during lunch/dinner/breakfast.
• Say no to snacking plus screen: Consciously avoid eating or drinking while engaging with devices, including the TV. Snacking should be restricted to when one is pondering, or doing various chores.
• Monitor your emotions: It’s important to analyse why one is reaching out to the phone often. Is it because the person is bored, depressed, anxious or disturbed and seeks the device as an escape? Once analysed, its easier to avoid rushing to the device often.
• Monitor your screen-time: Ironically, there are apps that can monitor how much time one is spending per day on – other apps! The app will even raise an alarm if one is crossing the time limit, set by oneself.
• Turn-off notifications: The constant beeps or pings from various apps or devices must be turned off as much as possible. One can even turn on the flight mode when one wants to indulge in hobbies or family-time.
• Keep the device out-of-sight: Out of sight is out of mind. Keeping the device out of sight in a particular room or corner of the room, prevents the tendency of grabbing the device every now and then.
• Avoid multitasking: Nothing is more insulting to a spouse, child or parent, if one is constantly checking devices while having a conversation. One should be encouraged to put down the device and speak face-to-face. If one or more family members are watching TV together, all other devices should be kept out of sight.
• Go on digital fasts: During vacations, holidays, weekends and periods of low-intensity work, one should completely abstain from devices for a day or half-a-day. It may seem difficult initially but will become easier with practice. If required, send a ‘digital fast’ message to colleagues, similar to an out-of-office message.
• Get back to hobbies: Hit the gym or the marathon training like you did before. Get back to that unfinished painting, article, book-reading or whatever you indulged in regularly in the past, before screen-time started impinging on that.
• Manage stress better: Yoga, meditation and mindfulness are known to reduce stress levels and de-addict a person from any kind of addiction including DA. Frequent sessions of these will reduce the tendency to grab a device all the time.
• Have daily/weekly detox plans: Get creative with your detox plans. Have a weekly schedule for the 7 days of the week with a unique detox plan for that day. This must be repeated week after week till it becomes a natural routine.

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