[I laughed out loud as I read this article (excerpted below) about how our lives have changed due to pervasive tech. As I read it, on my phone, first thing this morning… I realized ‘oh my- I have succumbed to “Tech Addiction” and I am watching my productivity crumble’:]
Oliver Burkeman, the author of the time-management book “Four Thousand Weeks,” was asked if he’d encountered any new strategies for rehabbing our relationship with tech. The title of his book refers to the average human life span, which invites the question: “How many of those weeks have I already wasted doomscrolling?”
Burkeman agreed that there was probably no new tactic that, taken in isolation, was going to free us from phone addiction. But if we make a philosophical change, the practical changes become more achievable.
The key, Burkeman said, is to adjust the way we think about our own agency. His work challenges what he sees as the prevailing narrative about distraction and social media — the one that sees us “sitting there, rapturously concentrating” when, against our will, our attention is snatched away by the evil talons of an Instagram feed.
But that’s not what most people experience. In reality, Burkeman said, whatever you’re working on triggers an unpleasant emotion in you — perhaps boredom, or fear of not being able to complete the task at hand, or concern about not having enough time. You take refuge in your phone in order to escape those uncomfortable feelings.
Once there, it’s designed to keep your attention and suck up your day. But the thing to keep in mind, he said, is “the idea of distraction as starting inside us, and not simply being a case of evil Silicon Valley companies stealing away our focus.” That way, we’re in charge. When the uncomfortable emotions arise, we can recognize them, and we’re better equipped to resist.
The thing I miss the most about my life without tech is the feeling I had that real life is all there was. There wasn’t a parallel universe online where I had duties and chores and a persona to maintain. I only had to exist in one realm.
Burkeman suggests, instead of attempting to eradicate social media, that we work on “switching our default setting” to real life. “Remind yourself that your real life is here in your physical surroundings and talking to people and doing things,” he said, adding, “Make social media somewhere you go instead of the place you live.”
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