Giving Ourselves A Break…

The first email was sent in 1971. The first item purchased on Amazon was in 1995. The first search on Google was in 1996. Facebook went live in 2004. The first video on YouTube was posted in 2005. Twitter began tweeting in 2006. In 2007, Apple’s I-Phone became available (often this is seen as the start of smart phones). Instagram was launched in 2010.

Now – May 2023 – Amazon is worth about $875 billion. About 8.5 billion searches every day take place on Google. There are about 3 billion people using Facebook. There are about 800 million videos on YouTube. There are about 200 billion tweets on Twitter each year. More than 5 billion people (out of a world population of 8 billion) have a smart phone. Instagram has about 1.5 billion users.

These are staggering statistics. Their sheer vastness could disorient and bewilder. It is very easy to be blinded by numbers and overwhelmed by figures and entranced by screens…

However, this has to be stated: these technologies are changing our minds; technology is changing how we relate to ourselves, each other, our surroundings. These technologies have undoubtedly bought vast positive benefits to our world; the uses of data for health, the enabling of connections between different people, the breaking down of isolation. Yet all this definitely comes with baggage.

Personally, I am addicted to my phone, the internet, my computer, checking world news and emails. The truth is that many of us are addicted to the tactility of our phones and the immediacy of the internet. So many cultures are switched on 24/7. Boundaries between work and non-work are undermined by this constant connectivity. In the words of writer Jenny Odell: “Every waking moment has become pertinent to our making a living.”

Such constant demands plus the blue lights of screens disrupt circadian rhythms and cortisol levels; and this can cause insomnia and increased stress. Surrounded by beeps and vibrates and likes and tweets, drowning in seas of information and opinions, lost amongst endless masses of data – is it any wonder that many are exhausted?

Naivety And Over-Optimism

Technology simultaneously gives us power – the world at a finger’s swipe – and makes us powerless, slaves to our screens. Technology can be utterly amazing and quite miraculous. Yet naivety and over-optimism are embedded for many of us in our tech fixations. Being so connected means that our neural wiring is altered in ways that has significant consequences for our lives and our behaviour.

Our brain architecture is partly created through interactions and engagement. This architecture will undoubtedly be different when so much is being experienced through mediums of flat screen and social media. These mediums are already significantly impacting our physical architecture: so-called ‘tech neck’ is one obvious example; and predictions for our future include crooked hands, elbows that do not fully straighten and even-more hunched shoulders. The cumulative outcome of all these changes is unknown.

We live in a society of great breadth and increasingly less depth; Google replacing memory, images being more important than in-person physical proximity and actual experiences of reality. Websites that feel like they stick to our eyes, websites that are solely designed to monetise our attention. Sixteen years after the launch of smart phones – as one example – it is almost like many of us are directly injecting the internet, texts, emails, updates and tweets. We are being mesmerised by screens, fixed on those blue lights and the bright things.

As well as too much alcohol, too much food, too much sugar, this can certainly be true: too much time online and too much digital data. Many of the tech titans (like Mark Zuckerberg) do not let their children engage with social media because they know its destructive potential. The truth is that corporations such as Facebook (aka Meta) and Google (aka Alphabet) exist to make money through their ceaseless mining of our lives and the data of our lives and then their selling of adverts and accessibility. So-called ‘free’ content comes at significant cost; the screens that flatten reality, the social media that can feed self-obsession.

Social Media

Social media is frequently a fuel for envy, an encouraging of shallow interactions, a mirror for narcissism. The appearance of social media is about making us feel less alone; this is true for some people (especially those who experience isolation because of health and other reasons). It is a fact that social media has made innumerable connections, creating real life friendships, cultivating plenty of thriving collaborations. Yet social media often also makes people feel lonelier.

The constant invasions of privacy and the invasive surveillance of all these technological tools leave us literally naked in front of corporate and state juggernauts. These juggernauts are primarily driven by profits and power. Commercialism and political agendas control the algorithms that guide our online attention. It is like the devices are taking over: less the potential of us using them, as perhaps happened with inventions/innovations such as the wheel, the printing press, the combustion engine – and maybe more we are becoming used by them (and the tiny few that control these tools).

We need to be aware and protect ourselves from this always-on culture that, while at times enthralling and enriching, is also deeply depleting. Unplugging and setting tech boundaries can be immensely restorative; a reducing of continual stimulation and immediate connectivity and dazed eyes. Instead of doom scrolling and vicariously viewing the lives of others who we barely know, time away from screens can then create space for inner-awareness and bigger-picture seeing. Slowing down inputs of new information might be very good for us, thus possibly creating space for our minds to wander. Perhaps a data sabbath campaign could help. Maybe we need ‘Phones Anonymous’.

Becoming Better Balanced

By regulating our use of technology, we are better balanced. I aspire (and definitely many times this does not happen) to not switch on phone/internet until 9am and to switch off by 9pm. Another strategy that could help are not having Facebook or other social media platforms on your phone (that is particularly good for me). Personally, at least once a year I have a week without emails, world news or social media.

I recognise that this is a privilege and a luxury. I also believe that it is a necessity for my emotional and mental health and I have found these times to be deeply creative and fulfilling. Being without can definitely feed demons, expose sadnesses, be combinations of boredom, frustration and anxiety. Being without often means that my dream life becomes more active. Perhaps this is a healthier and more balanced way of being – less addicted and more present.

Simone Weil, a French philosopher in the 20th century, stated: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”. The fact is that online interaction is built and designed to distract our attention so that we focus more on small screens and less on what is around. It is crucial that we are careful about who we let into our heads. We are feeding our data to algorithmic machines whose primary purpose is to sell us stuff. To me, wariness of screens because of worries about what this is doing to us makes sense. To me, speed and instantaneous connectivity come with a considerable charge. Quiet times and being out amongst nature can be good ways of cultivating greater equanimity.

Knowing that diets of more and more commonly cause obesity and illness, realising that disconnecting can help us to reconnect, understanding that the sirens of our screens need conscious resistance: these are important insights. I believe that we need to query these technological tools so that we might have more grounded and more mature relationships with them: still appreciative, however less infatuated; to celebrate the plenty of positives without denying difficulties and deluding ourselves about the traps within these technologies.

This is about recharging, so that we can be more appropriately responsive (instead of reactive). Reset, rest, restore and reflect.

Norman Blair
6 May 2023


I highly recommend 24/6: the power of unplugging one day a week by Tiffany Shlain; here is a 30-minute talk by her on this subject.