Author: It’s Time to Log Off

Digital detox med broderi på National Embroidery Day

Efter nedstängningen uppmuntrar vi på Time To Log Off dig att lägga ner dina skärmar och delta i några verkliga aktiviteter. Genom vår #SummerUnplugged utmaning vill vi få dig ut ur ditt domedagshål och tillbaka i den fysiska världen via någon digital detox. Ett av de bästa sätten att hålla sig till din nya livsstil är genom att hitta analoga alternativ till skärmtid som – broderi! Så på National Embroidery Day, 30 juli, firar vi alla sätt som handarbete kan hjälpa dig på resan till digitalt välbefinnande.

Kungliga skolan för handarbete

Vi har varit stora fans av hemmet för vackra broderier, The Royal School of Needlework,på Time To Log off sedan vi först rekommenderade en av deras kurser i en julklappslista. RSN har främjat de unika fördelarna med broderi sedan 1872 – långt innan digitala enheter skapade ett behov av broderi för att hjälpa en digital detox! De är baserade på det historiska Hampton Court Palace i Storbritannien, och är värd för en myriad av olika kurser och program för att lära alla från nybörjare till avancerade broderier nya färdigheter. De har till och med ett utbildningsprogram: en BA (Hons) Hand Embroidery Degree validerad av University for the Creative Arts (UCA) som gör det möjligt för många ivriga handarbetare att sträcka sina vingar och arbeta för stora namn som Alexander McQueen. De arbetade berömdt på hertiginnan av Cambridges bröllopsklänning! 30 juli är inte bara National Embroidery Day utan också World Friendship Day, mycket passande med tanke på de många vänskap som gjorts genom RSN broderi studio i år som kurser togs online i pandemin, och göras tillgängliga för människor över hela världen.

Sysslolösa händer?

Den genomsnittliga vuxna spenderar 8 timmar online varje dag. Vi plockar upp och rör vår telefon cirka 2 617 gånger om dagen. Sedan nedstängningen spenderar vi 70-80% mer tid på våra telefoner enligt Australiens nationella bredbandsnätverk. Om vi vill förbättra vårt digitala välbefinnande måste vi alla avsätta tid för lite digital detox. För många av oss har vanan att sträcka sig efter vår telefon blivit så instinktiv att vi inte ens inser att vi gör det. Ett av de bästa sätten att bekämpa denna vana är att hålla händerna upptagna. Vi är fans av broderi som en fantastisk analog aktivitet för detta. Det är inte repetitivt och oavsett hur bra du är måste du alltid använda båda händerna – och lämna inget utrymme för en snabb Twitter-rullning!

Upptagen hjärna?

Våra hjärnprocesser lider av all tid vi spenderar på skärmar. Vår koncentration försämras,vår kreativitet avtar och vår mentala hälsa minskar. Broderi är en perfekt anekdot för allt detta. Efter första världskriget besökte Royal School of Needlework-kvinnor faktiskt soldater på sjukhus och lärde dem nålspets. Det gav funktionshindrade veterinärer ett sätt att tjäna sitt uppehälle, och hjälpte också till att lindra deras posttraumatisk stress. Några av dessa soldater fortsatte att skapa en altartavla för St Paul's Cathedral i London, under ledning av RSN. Om broderi var tillräckligt kraftfullt för WW1 veterinärer att återhämta sig med, vi tänker att det måste finnas mycket det kan göra för oss idag.

Gör något varaktigt

En aspekt av broderi vi särskilt gillar, är att genom att göra det skapar du något konkret. Så ofta idag är vårt dagliga liv fullt av oklara idéer och aktiviteter, som inte kan röras eller visas. Men med broderi varje stygn du gör är synlig, vacker och fysisk. Ditt arbete kan inte gå förlorat eller tas ifrån dig, du måste stanna i ögonblicket med det. På National Embroidery Day, varför inte undersöka broderi som en analog aktivitet för att ge dig en paus från din telefon i sommar? Du kanske bara hittar en ny hobby du älskar.

Visa den ursprungliga artikeln på itstimetologoff.com

Has your Phone Addiction Got Worse in Lockdown?

We’ve all had to use our phones more in lockdown but how do you know when your use is straying from helpful into harmful? Did you go into the pandemic struggling with phone addiction? Has it now got even worse?

A helpful way of deciding whether you’re addicted to any process or substance, is to look at the impact it’s having on the rest of your life. If there are aspects of your use of your smartphone which are stopping you from enjoying, and taking part in, things which you used to get a great deal of pleasure out of, you need to take a closer look.

Some warning signs of phone addiction that might have got worse in lockdown are:

You’re ignoring the people you’re with for your phone

Snubbing people who you’re with because of an uncontrollable urge to check your phone even has it’s own name – phubbing – and it’s a real problem. Relationships with others are a key element of our health and happiness and investing our time and attention in them pays dividends.

It’s likely you’re doing this in a completely unconscious way as you absent-mindedly pick up your phone mid-conversation. Try and employ some mindfulness techniques to be aware of when you’re scrolling without thinking. Better still, put your phone away completely when you’re 1-2-1 with anyone, or when you’re with a group of friends or family enjoying spending time together.

You check your phone in the middle of the night

Most people use their phones as alarm clocks, which means they sleep with them very close by to their beds in their bedroom. Checking your phone in the middle of the night when you’re in that semi-alert state between sleep and full wakefulness, is likely to wrench you abruptly awake and interrupt your sleep patterns. If night-time phone checking is getting out of hand, banish your phone from your bedroom, or leave it the other side of the room from your bed for a while.

You panic when you don’t know where your phone is

We’ve all had that slightly panicky feeling when we pat our coat and trouser pockets, trying to check where our phone is. But if you suddenly realise you don’t know where your phone is and you then feel a rising tide of panic, you’re definitely getting over-attached. Think back to how you felt about temporarily misplacing your phone a year ago. Now compare it to how you feel about it now. If your panic is getting greater, you need to take some steps to control that. Deep breathing and counting to ten will give you a chance to calm yourself before panic sets in.

You take it with you into the bathroom…

…and you send texts and messages, or scroll through social media while sitting on the loo! This is a habit we can all definitely stop. The bathroom is one place you can do without your phone for a few minutes. Get into the habit of leaving it outside. There’s also the issue of germs and bacteria to contend with which isn’t helpful in a pandemic – keep your phone away from that environment.

You simply can’t leave it in another room of the house from you

If carrying your smartphone from room to room, even when you’re in your own home, has got into a bad habit you need to untether yourself. Designate a few rooms in the home where you won’t take your smartphone and decide on a central location where you can leave your phone when you want to focus on other things. Treat your smartphone like a landline for a while, detach yourself from it as you go about your life. Turn the notification volume up loud if your panic about missing something feels overwhelming. Or turn it off completely if you really want to disconnect.

So what can you do about your phone addiction?

If you recognise yourself in any of these unhealthy habits then we recommend thinking about a full or partial digital detox and stepping away from your smartphone for a while.

Be more mindful with your use of your phone. Try and go out for short periods of time and leave it behind, even for small trips or shopping errands. Put it firmly away when you’re with other people. Anxiety may be driving your increased vigilance over your phone right now, so find other ways to self-soothe and seek reassurance. Any habit that stops you from being present with your own feelings isn’t serving you well, your smartphone addiction is no different.

For more strategies on how to deal with phone addiction, and interviews with people from all walks of life talking about their relationship with tech, check out our podcast ‘It’s Complicated”

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

Are You Doomscrolling Right Now? Here’s How To Stop.

Reading the news is important. Keeping yourself informed about current affairs promotes social and global awareness. It enhances engagement with community, and can aid critical thinking skills. However, sometimes the kind of news stories we come across can also be damaging to our mental health. News of the unrelentingly bad kind can cause anxiety, stress and fatigue.

There is a point where the damage done to your mental health by reading the news outweighs its benefits. When we continue to read beyond this, despite the negative toll the content has already taken on our mental health, we are ‘doomscrolling‘.

Humans are naturally curious. We love new information, so reading the news – whether good or bad – can be addictive. When you combine this with our addiction to our phones, and the online world, where we have a huge number of news outlets at our fingertips, it’s a wonder we ever put our phones down at all.

Of course, earlier this year, we rarely did. The constant waves of breaking stories about new coronavirus cases and new countries’ containment efforts, together with live updating global case statistics and daily updated death count kept us scrolling into the night. With lockdown keeping us inside, doomscrolling was how we whittled away the hours.

We were very aware that endlessly reading the news wasn’t making us happy. It was causing panic and despair. We know that too long spent on social media is bad for our mental health. When the content keeping us hooked is only bad news, the effects are exacerbated.

We all understand the value of physical rest, so why is it a struggle to we let our minds rest as well? Too often we see going on our phone as an activity for winding down, often done before bed, when in reality it’s the opposite. Doomscrolling is damaging our mental health. How can we stop?

Set yourself time to engage with the news, and stick to this

Instead of just scrolling through newsfeeds throughout the day, set yourself just 30 minutes to keep informed. Or, decide you’re not going to read much online in the day, but watch the 6 o’clock news. We’re all fond of the 10 o’clock news in the UK, but hearing stories that late could negatively impact your sleep, with anxiety keeping you awake. Cut back on late-night news consumption.

Pick your favourite news outlets and stick with those

When newspapers were our primary source of news, there was a finite amount of content that we could consume per day. Now that most of use digital sources, there is an endless bank of stories from a variety of outlets across the web. Identify the ones you trust and stick to a few.

Unsubscribe from news-heavy media

Many outlets give their stories the most shocking and attention-grabbing headlines to get the most views. Stop letting those anxiety inducing posts interrupt your time spent on social media, and clog up your feed. Unsubscribe and unfollow. You’ll still be able to access news and see what your favourite outlets are reporting, but having to click on their profile to do so will make it a more conscious decision. Don’t let them target you and cause you to doomscroll.

Be away from your phone

Cook a meal, go for a walk, spend time with your partner or friends. Taking a break from your phone will allow you to take back some time from doomscrolling and spend it on yourself. By occupying yourself with analogue activities you’ll find you can truly relax.

Stop treating the news as your primary source of info

The news is great in helping us to rapidly get a grip of live-breaking stories, but it shouldn’t be what we use to educate ourselves about world affairs with.

If you want to read up on the events preempting a certain event in the news, books might be a better source. That they are not dealing with breaking stories will make for a calmer, more objective presentation of facts, with the benefit of retrospect for added clarity. Furthermore, ‘fake news’ will not be as big a worry. Books are more likely to be fact-checked, whereas breaking stories are often just hastily written and pushed out in a frantic attempt to be the first outlet to cover this particular story.

If you have any tips or suggestions for people who might be letting their doomscrolling get out of control – get in touch, we’d love to share them with everyone in the Time To Log off community.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

7 Signs of Social Media Addiction

The events of this year and the various lockdown and quarantine rules imposed by countries has caused social media use to soar – 47% of internet users across 17 countries admitted their time spent on social media has increased.

We all came to be a bit too reliant on social media during lockdown. Whilst it proved a great way of staying in contact with friends and family we were otherwise unable to see, it also began to dominate our daily routine. We’d spend hours pouring over Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and, the rapidly growing platform, Tik Tok.

Now, however, the real world is beginning to open up. We’re being encouraged to spend more time outside. Face-to-face interactions (granted that they are made with caution) are even starting to become normal and regular again. No longer so isolated, and with better weather, our hours spent on social media should be plummeting.

Yet habits can be difficult to break. Even though you know that social media should no longer be such a central part of your daily routine, you may be feeling a draw to it.  And that’s understandable; over lockdown, you may have developed a dependency on social media. But has this shifted to a social media addiction?

Check with yourself how many of these 7 signs of social media addiction apply to you:

The first thing you do in the morning is check social media

This also applies to when you finish the work day, or at any other point in the day when you have free time. If your first instinct is to reach for you phone, you probably have a slightly unhealthy relationship with your tech.

You check social media during the work day

Allowing sites to hinder your productivity is a direct impact of being addicted to them. We all know how the temptation of opening Facebook or Instagram in another window when stuck on a boring or difficult task, but we also all know how this never makes us feel better.

You are anxious when you cannot check your social media

You may be familiar with that feeling of a desperate need to check and refresh your social media pages. If being away from your phone or without internet, and the prospect of not being able to go on social media for a while, makes you feel anxious , it is likely that you have a social media addiction.

You are constantly checking how your posts perform…

…and you let this influence your mood. Social media should be a fun way to interact with friends, not a mind consuming task. If you are getting caught up in how many likes a post of yours is getting, it is a sign that you are placing too much weight on these interactions. If how people interact to your posts affects you emotionally, it is a desperate sign that you need to work out how to distance your sense of self from social media.

You spend a lot of time overthinking and planning your posts

If you are guilty of this, it means social media is not just taking up a lot of your time, but also much of your headspace. This is not good for mental health. You need a break and you need time to be alone with your thoughts. Allowing social media to clog up even your thoughts obstructs mental clarity and peace of mind.

You think you hear your phone buzz, when really it didn’t

You are craving the little dopamine hit you get from phone notifications so badly that your mind has imagined one. Enough said.

You neglect your own hobbies in favour of scrolling

Sometimes, instead of partaking in the analogue activities we know we enjoy, we spend the time endlessly scrolling. In doing so, we do not get the satisfaction that would have come with committing that little bit of time to this hobby. When meaningful analogue activities take a backseat, it is a sure sign that we have let our social media habits hijack our life.

So what can I do?

If any of these apply to you, or if you personally feel that you have developed an unhealthy relationship with your phone, we recommend a digital detox.

Our main point of advice is to be mindful with tech use. Stop using social media as an easy way out. Stop letting it replace one-to-one conversations, time spent working, or a hobby of yours you know you enjoy.

Each time you want to open the apps, ask yourself why, and what you will get out of it. At the beginning, it may feel like you are having to be strict with yourself, but with practicing this mindfulness will come a realisation that you have better ways to spend your time.

Social media is a fantastic tool and way to connect, but it can take its toll on us. Like anything, it should be enjoyed in moderation.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

Summer Unplugged: digital detox after lockdown

Are you thinking about the appeal of a summer unplugged? As lockdown gradually lifts and we all stumble blindly away from our screens we now have an opportunity to create a new balance in our relationship with tech.

It’s recommended by the WHO that children under the age of 5 consume only one hour of digital media a day, accompanied by their parent, and that older children should not spend more than two hours a day on screens. Yet as lockdown stopped us from communicating with family, and stymied all our attempts to find entertainment out of our homes, children and adults have been spending more and more time online. In Australia, the average usage of WiFi across the country increased by 70-80% during the lockdown.

However, after all that screen time, everyone everywhere now seems to want to switch off. Three quarters of American families say that they plan to take a digital detox after lockdown. So, here are some tips to help you experience the benefits of our our annual campaign to enjoy a summer unplugged.

1. Meet in person

After months of being trapped at home, we all appreciate our friends more don’t we? Human connection is vital to our wellbeing, and our friends are a big part of that. You could have a picnic in the park or go for a walk in the sporadic sunshine, you will be amazed at the difference in your interactions once you are physically together (socially distanced of course) not communicating through a screen. Just make sure you’re not phubbing them!

2. Get some sleep!

This is one of our most oft-quoted tips. Get an alarm clock and leave your phone outside the bedroom. This way you can be doing a digital detox as long as you are asleep! You will be amazed at the difference in your sleep quality. You won’t be able to scroll in the middle of the night, and the blue light won’t keep you up either- win-win!

3. Go outside

The longer the summer goes on the more we’re allowed to be outside so take advantage of it. Playing a game, hiking a mountain or sitting on the beach – there’s a way for everyone to enjoy the outdoors – find yours. Spending just two hours a week in nature can have a significant impact on your mental and physical health. So, whether you have been sheltered or unable to get to nature because you live in a big city, make it a priority this summer.

4. Eat screen-free

Many of us have been living with our families for months, 24/7. Others have been isolating alone. But however you have spent the last 12 weeks, we can all agree that conversation and connection have been an important part of keeping us all sane. So why not ban screens from mealtimes and focus on the food you eat and the people you share it with. You can also ban screens if you are living alone. Eating without screens can be a useful way to reconnect with your thoughts and be more mindful of what you are consuming.

5. Start small

After months of mediating our lives through our smartphones, it can be intimidating to suddenly go cold turkey and do a total digital detox. Take it slow. Turn your phone off (or put it on silent at least!) whilst you engage in other activities. Consider leaving your phone at home when you go out, even if that’s just to the shops. Or maybe during your summer unplugged you could just pick a single hour every day when you avoid all digital devices?

Bonus: Support each other

It’s a hard task to overhaul our digital habits so tell those around you to help you stay accountable and support others who are on the journey too. Together we can create a new world of balanced behaviours.

#SummerUnplugged

Let us know how you’re getting on (only occasionally) by using the hashtag #SummerUnplugged to signal your intentions and share your successes. It can also serve as a way to remind your friends you won’t be glued to a screen this summer!

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

Why You Need to Stay Away from TikTok

“A parasitic app that is always listening” (Steve Huffman, Reddit co-Founder)

Since its launch in the UK in September 2017, TikTok has rapidly become a cultural phenomenon. With its 800 million active users, the video sharing platform has even produced its own generation of celebrities.

Lockdown saw TikTok soar in popularity – in March alone the app had 115 million global downloads – as young people, bored and stuck at home, turned to the social media site. Whether used as a new way to connect with friends, or as a distraction, TikTok has become entrenched in many young people’s daily lives: on average, kids aged 4 to 15 in the UK now spend 69 minutes every day just watching TikTok videos.

But aside from the addictive nature of the app, TikTok poses some other very serious threats. By any standards, and especially for an app that markets itself towards and profits off children and young people, the security measures in place to protect users are appalling.

Last year TikTok had to make a 7 figure payout to the US  Federal Trade Commission due to accusations of violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The makers are fully aware of how young an audience they attract, yet make no effort to seek parental consent when children create accounts, and inevitably provide TikTok with personal information on themselves. Furthermore, privacy tools are hidden away within the settings. It is clear to see that TikTok does not care about the protection of its young users.

In fact, TikTok has shown a blatant disregard for the security of any of its users. In January this year the app was found to be highly vulnerable to hackers, who were able to easily take control of users’ accounts and find personal information associated with those accounts, such as email addresses.

To make matters worse, recent inspection suggests that it is not only the other people on this app which pose a threat to a user’s privacy, but the app itself. We have always cautioned not to give away personal details to strangers online, to keep social media profiles private, etcetera, but when it is the app preying on personal data, there is no shelter. A senior software engineer who recently reverse-engineered the app deemed TikTok ‘a data collection service that is thinly-veiled as a social network’.

“TikTok might not meet the exact criteria to be called ‘Malware,’ but it’s definitely nefarious and (in my humble opinion) outright evil,” the engineer wrote. “There’s a reason governments are banning it. Don’t use the app. Don’t let your children use it. Tell your friends to stop using it. If there is an API to get information on you, your contacts, or your device… well, they’re using it,” they wrote. The engineer also said that the app was designed to make it difficult to understand exactly how it worked.”

It has been previously claimed by other sources that TikTok ‘spies’ on its users after an Apple security update in June showed that TikTok reads and copies the last item saved to your phone’s clipboard. If your clipboards are synced across devices, this means TikTok could be reading anything you copy to paste on your laptop or iPad: from personal details to work stuff.

Whilst this is only one instance of TikTok being caught out, we cannot underestimate its significance. Invasive and dangerous, it is a gross abuse of privacy. Fundamentally however, it is a scary sign of the app’s willingness – and even desire – to collect as much personal data on its users as possible, with or without consent.

For an app aimed at the most vulnerable online users, the superficial appeal of TikTok with its harmless-looking dance videos and routines encouraging younger and younger users to sign on, should come with a clear online safety warning. It’s our advice that you, and your children, should stay well away from TikTok until some of its more worrying flaws are fixed.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

Our digital detox podcast, It’s Complicated, is back for Season 4

Season 4 of our digital detox podcast is here! It’s Complicated: Untangling the Relationship With Our Phones returned on UK Unplugging Day, kicking off with guest three times Olympic champion Pete Reed OBE, former Team GB rower.

Since the digital detox podcast launch in 2019, Time to Log Off founder Tanya Goodin has sat down with a variety of high profile guests to discuss their relationship with their phone and the digital world. This season will see a new set of guests open up about their tech-life balance, as they share with us their tips and tricks for healthy phone habits.

This coming season we can look forward to hearing from YouTuber Jack Edwards, fitness entrepreneur Grace Beverley and Instagram meme-page running Dave Tarnowski.

We really want to get to the bottom of our relationship with screens and our behaviour online, so this season will also feature a focus on talking to scientists and academics. Tanya will be talking to Berkeley behavioural scientist Prof Juliana Shroeder, consultant neurologist and sleep physician Dr Guy Leschziner, and Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. With guests such as these delving deep into our behaviour, we hope to uncover further how we can help ourselves change our habits for the better.

Previous seasons of our podcast have seen a wide range of guests – from professors, to influencers and reality TV stars – share and break down their phone habits with us. In Season 1 we discussed with Ben and Marina Fogle the challenges of parenting in the age of screens. We also chatted to journalist and TV presenter Tim Lovejoy about phone addiction and the celebrity culture our online habits are intrinsically linked to.

Season 2 then saw us focus more on lifestyle, as we learnt from Hinge CEO Justin McLeod about how our smartphone habits have harmed our dating. We encouraged listeners to build a more sustainable relationship with their tech: an episode with Kelsea Weber from iFixit taught us that we could and should be fixing our own tech. We also talked a lot about our online habits. We spoke to ethical hacker Scott McGready about how we can keep ourselves safe online, and what habits put us in danger of fraud, as well as Ben Bidwell on depictions of masculinity, and how to build positive male role models online, in the age of smartphones.  

Listen back to Season 3, in which we had an eye-opening discussion with Made In Chelsea’s Jamie Laing on the online scrutiny celebrities are faced with, and what he chooses to keep private in the age of sharing. That season, we also spoke to craftivist Sharon Downey, social-sex entrepreneur Cindy Gallop and ex-Love Island contestant ‘Dr Alex’, Alex George. 

Lockdown has seen us become more reliant on tech than ever before, and trying to establish a healthy screen-time balance may now seem more even more daunting. It is our hope that our digital detox podcast It’s Complicated will help untangle and break down your approach to achieving a healthy digital-analogue life balance.  It’s Complicated reiterates that establishing good tech habits is a shared challenge; after all, we’re all in this together!

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

The Power of Puzzles to Help You Log Off

Throughout quarantine we’ve been talking about the importance of finding things to do outside of screen time such as sewing, cooking or even making music. Now we have another suggestion of a great way to spend your time offline: doing puzzles!

As we come out of lockdown, and indeed during it, many are choosing to get a break and step away from our devices. We’ve been spending far too long glued to the screen and there’s been a renaissance of interest in analogue pursuits. Even before lockdown trapped us all at home, the power of puzzles to completely absorb us and help us relax, was seen in the 132% year on year increase in sales in the UK. They’ve continued to boom while we’ve all been trapped at home with more and more free time and trying to stay off devices. With UK Unplugging Day on Sunday the 28th of June fast approaching we’d like to suggest that you get stuck into a puzzle, they keep your hands and mind busy as well as being gorgeous to look at (if you choose the right one!)

One of reasons we spend such an inordinate amount of time on our phones is that it keeps our hands busy and it’s become an unconscious reflex for us to pick up their phone and start scrolling instead of actively participating in the world around us.

So we challenge you to turn away from mindless scrolling on UK Unplugging Day and get stuck into some puzzles. Wentworth Puzzles, in particular, are a good place to get you puzzling. Their designs are gorgeous (which if you are a regular puzzler you will know is not guaranteed in all puzzles). Their puzzles also contain irregular ‘whimsy’ pieces which often reflect the theme of the larger puzzle, making the puzzle itself harder and more aesthetically pleasing! You can even buy the puzzles in different sizes (e.g. 200 pieces or 800) so you determine how much time you put into them, and you don’t have to compromise on the design if you are new to puzzling

So buy a puzzle today, try it on Sunday 28th and witness the power of puzzles to help you log off.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

Ditch Your Device for a Day on UK Unplugging Day

UK Unplugging Day will take place on Sunday 28^th June and we’re challenging you to join in! The event encourages everyone to take part in a 24 hour digital detox.

This year has seen our relationship with our digital devices change drastically. It’s wonderful that we have been able to continue education and work through these devices, but it does mean that we are spending more time on them than ever before. However difficult we will find it, taking a step back and a break from our tech will come like a much needed breath of fresh air.

Time to Log Off has always emphasised the importance of maintaining our off-screen relationships. We believe that a connection to the real world gives so much more back than our virtual interactions.

We know that regular digital detoxes are crucial for a healthy tech-life balance. However, we realise that often these can seem daunting and, with us so used to relying on tech in our daily lives, even impossible.

An annual event, UK Unplugging Day is always on the 4^th Sunday of June in order to make it easier for those who require tech for their work. We encourage you log off all day, but if you do need to use your devices at some point over the 24 hour period, you can still do your best to participate when possible. We guarantee that you will feel the benefit of even just few hours spent away from your screens. There are really very little excuses for not giving it a go!

So many of us rely on screens for entertainment as well as work. We spend hours on social media, video games and watching TV. One day without these will help you rediscover off-screen activities that you used to love, and perhaps some new ones! Don’t underestimate the rejuvenating power of being away from your tech for a while.

Our favourite of these analogue alternatives is connecting with nature. Use Sunday to get outside, whether you go for a walk, have a kickabout or even just sit in the sun. Leave your phone at home and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with fresh air.

We really believe that participating in UK Unplugging Day this coming Sunday will be a really valuable experience. It will remind you of the value of being away from your devices, and the enjoyment you can get through off-screen activities. Try to extend this into your daily life by setting aside time for the activities you rediscover.

Yes, perhaps the stress of the day-to-day and FOMO might make you feel anxious about not checking your phone. But nationwide everyone joining in will be feeling exactly the same. By joining in on Sunday, you’ll be joining a community of people who realise the value of maintaining and growing their off-line interests, relationships and communities. Enjoy it!

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

Need a Digital Detox after Lockdown?

The news that three-quarters of American families reported that they plan to limit their children’s screen time after lockdown is lifted came as no surprise to us. Parents report they ask their children to get off a digital device an average of seven times a day, with 3 in 10 parents saying they disagree amongst themselves how long their children should use their devices for, adding to an already pressurised atmosphere at home.

If you think a digital detox sounds like a good idea after all the time on screens these last three months here are some tips to ease you in;

#1 Enforce boundaries

Throughout lockdown, it was difficult to enforce boundaries around tech. Our homes. or even bedrooms, became offices. We communicated with friends and family through the same software as our colleagues and we relaxed through the same screens we had been working on that day. So, our most important piece of advice for maintaining a semblance of digital wellbeing in and beyond lockdown is to enforce boundaries. You could assign a specific place in your home to work in and try to stick to working hours within it. You could use a different device (e.g. phone vs. laptop) for contacting friends. You could leave your devices outside your room before bed because we know the impact that tech has on our sleep.

#2 More audio less video

Everyone jumped on the idea of video calls as the next best thing to meeting in person, but many of us have found them quite stressful. All those poor audio quality calls and the strain to read body language. Ease yourself back into life a little more off screens by suggesting phone calls, they require far less preparation and there will be no worries about anyone’s poor wifi connection, a theme of quarantine. You could also look into audio-based entertainment such as audiobooks or even our podcast to keep your mind occupied.

#3 Meet up

One of the positives of lockdown was that it allowed people the time to focus on their relationships with friends and family. We’re talking more frequently to more people and at Time To Log Off we wouldn’t like to see that end with the lifting of restrictions. 58% of adults in the UK use social media to communicate with family daily but 67% say they would prefer to meet those people in person. As we are increasingly able to travel around the country and meet our loved ones in person, take advantage of it! We still have a lot of free time and what remains of it could be spent in person (though socially distanced) with your friends and family. Even making plans for a month or so from now when restrictions are likely to be lifted even more can bring light to yourself and others. Lockdown has made us all appreciate the importance of in-person interaction.

#4 Go outside

One of the best ways to do a digital detox after lockdown is to go outside. Take a pet or go alone, either way, make sure you are spending as much time outside as possible. Walking, cycling, running, or even sunbathing, however you choose to spend your time it will give you greater balance and you will feel more at peace. You could even combine this tip with the former and have a picnic in a park (bringing your own food and socially distancing of course). That is the antithesis of the holing ourselves up in dark rooms which we have been doing for three months now, get the sun on your face, even the rain and you will be amazed at its transformative properties.

Hopefully, these tips will help you to try a digital detox after lockdown and reorganise your life with a healthier appreciation of the need to spend some time offline!

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com