Monday, February 18, 2019

Are You Married to Your Phone? More Ideas to Turn Off the Attention Merchants


A recent video created by Educated Change does a great job of getting us to think about our device use. Watch it above first before reading below:

(Spoiler alert) As you've seen, the video first gets us thinking we are watching a couple's wedding vows, most likely personally written by one another. Soon, however, we start to question the situation and by the end we realize that the partner in this marriage is actually a device and data plan! Creative videos like this with a surprise do a great job of jarring us into reality to self-reflect on our personal use of technology.

I’ve written a few times about efforts to get others to realize how much time they are spending on their personal devices (from adding up the hours gained on a social media fast and converting them to vacation time, to Prince EA’s Can We Autocorrect Humanity? to Keeping Tech Away from the Dinner Table and much more.) Getting ourselves and others to look at the amount of time we spend on our phones and other devices is tough. Even harder is getting us to make a change and consider reducing this time. Educated Change offers two hacks which I have not thought of before:
  1. Turn off your device's Raise to Wake setting so you don't feel compelled to look at your screen every time you slightly move your device and it turns on, interrupting your attention and distracting you with any notifications on the screen. Educated Change creatively call this "Turn Off the Attention Merchants." In the past I've written about turning off almost all notifications and taking control of your phone and need to add this to my list.
     
  2. Enact Breaking Bad Mode, their suggested hack which involves turning on Do Not Disturb for most of your contacts. This means that your phone won't buzz or make a noise when new text messages are received. If you've used the Do Not Disturb While Driving Feature, this is similar but is enacted at all times, not just when driving. This is a creative way to use a feature for a new purpose. Educated Change even suggests editing a custom reply to text back, letting people know you are on a "Phone Detox." 
If you try out either of the hacks above, let me know your success. I'm trying the first but not yet ready to go to "Breaking Bad Mode." 

I continue to be a big fan of Apple’s Screen Time tools. My family and I use it and I encourage others to do so as well. Using personal data and stats to reflect on one’s own use is the best way to become aware of habits and make changes.

Read more about this topic through these related posts: 
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)