Author: It’s Time to Log Off

Friends Before Phones: Phone Addiction is Wrecking Our Social Lives

You go to meet a friend, wait a bit…They finally arrive but seem somewhat preoccupied.

Their phone is out. You’re talking to them but they don’t really respond. They don’t say anything because their head is in a screen.

“What’s going on?” You interject. For some strange reason, you’re the one who feels rude.

A moment of attention. “Sorry, stuff going on at work.” Head down. Entire email chains reviewed, thoughts about responses. Sentences written. Why did they agree to meet?

And all the while you’re just sitting there wondering: ‘Are we in the same room?‘

Phone addiction = attention spent on things not present

It’s all too familiar. A busy, flustered friend arrives with their head still in their work, and their work appears to be located on their phone.

It’s not just friends either – parents are at it too. A family dinner might be organised only for it to turn out to be not really family time at all;  phones are out, parents are glued to them, anxious about email responses that probably mean nothing at all. 

It’s all too easy to get hooked into. Because of the nature of unrestricted, unending information flow, people can leave work at the end of the day physically tired, but still with their head in overdrive. It’s not just work either – we can all get anxious from an unanswered pile-up of social media notifications, or whether or not our latest profile picture got enough likes. 

It’s a strange, infuriating feature of modern relationships. Phone addiction means people are beginning to prioritise what is happening on their phone vs. their real life experiences. They might say that they are ‘too busy to meet’, but then agree to meeting up but still appear ‘too busy’ when they’re actually there – glued to their phone, lost in their phone addiction, with their attention elsewhere.

I don’t have time vs. it’s not a priority

There’s an interesting Ted Talk where speaker Laura Vanderjam talks about problems with modern time management. Under particular examination was the notion of ‘I don’t have time’ – one of the most common expressions we now use.

The point she made is that people actually do have time for lots of things, but they have limited priorities. For instance, your boiler explodes and sets your kitchen on fire – you’re probably ‘going to have time’ to sort it out, because not doing so would actually be detrimental to your quality of life. You make it a priority, time is allocated – it will get solved. Starting a gym membership after a decade-long hiatus on the other hand may be less of a priority.

In our relationships we seem to be undergoing a strange paradox. There might be the occasional ‘don’t have time’ reason to meet – something that regularly occurs in the repetitive blowouts of online dating – and these can be the same the long term friendships too. But now there are times when people seemingly do have time to meet up, only to not prioritise the person in front of them when they’re together. They’ve apparently got more important things to tend to – on their phone. They’ve finally made the time to meet, only for the actual meeting not to be a priority.

The best solution to this behaviour it would seem is sinply to tell them to put their phone away. Are any of us going to be brave enough?

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

Is It Time To Ditch The Dating Apps?

There was a time, somewhere near 2012, where mobile dating apps like Tinder represented something of a revolution. There were three problems in the online dating market; stigma, accessibility and  unrestricted messaging. The first two meant that many people wouldn’t even sign up in the first place, the last one meant that those who did were quickly driven away. If you were a man, you might have to send hundreds of messages a day to get just one response. If you were a woman, you could be met with an overwhelming deluge of unwanted messages.

Mobile datings apps set out to solve these problems. They were easy to set up, it was an essentially free product and you had to actually match with someone before you could message. And so the three biggest problems with web-based online dating were eliminated in a stroke. Tinder was introduced to west coast college sororities and fraternities, and it soon spread rapidly. Within two years of its initial release there were 1 billion swipes on the app, producing twelve million matches and the average user was spending ninety minutes on it every day.

Tinder’s Golden Age

Around the same time, smartphones got a whole lot better, and 4G connectivity meant you could swipe wherever you fancied. I remember spending entire evenings with my late twenty-something housemates, all of us in need of a partner, swiping away on our phones together – occasionally celebrating when the chime of a match came in.

Did it actually lead to dates? Yes, certainly. Around 2014 I remember using the app and meeting matches whom I wouldn’t have normally have been able to meet (or more likely charm) through my normal method of heading to bars and nightclubs in London. A few fizzled out quickly. Some were early examples of ‘ghosting‘- the practice of going silent rather than letting the other partner know you don’t want meet up again – but I moved on, because you could always meet someone else quite quickly with Tinder.

Over a few years a couple blossomed into relationships. I have to say that as it goes, Tinder worked, and not primarily for the ‘hook-up’ culture it’s been renowned for. A few of my friends got into long term relationships from it.

Behaviour Change

But somewhere along this journey something began to change. It might just have been something to do with getting a little older – people get busier, want something more serious, and other things associated with more responsibility in your early 30s. But people’s behaviour when using dating apps just seemed to get a lot worse.

I would regularly go through the process of having interesting and pleasant chats with people, arranging a drink, only for them to disappear when it came to the final arrangements. After a while, ghosting became the norm. It seemed like far more people were happy to adopt behaviour that had been seen as harsh just a couple of years before.

Why was this? It’s difficult to know for certain, but I have a few hunches. The rosy early days of online dating – where people were giddily using the apps to actually meet people – seem to have passed. Singletons now accept dating apps as part of life, and one that can present a limitless range of prospective partners. But actually meeting up seems to be the exception, not the rule.

So Many Options… So Little Time

Added to this is a kind of dating fatigue; people have been on just enough bad dates to make them think that being nice is a waste of time. The lack of a real-world connection with matches means they can easily be cut off without feeling guilty. No point wasting ten minutes getting into a debate as to why it’s not working, or why you don’t want to meet up – just cut them loose or block them. If they are just one of many you are messaging then there are no emotional strings attached.

This leads to a kind of catch-22 of a situation. People might converse with as many matches as they can, only for those matches to do exactly the same. Because all people are always aspiring to meet those they are most attracted to, people are prepared to drop conversations in an instant if they think they can meet someone they are just a bit more attracted to. Dating apps have given people so many options, that they’ve made people just too ‘busy’ to actually meet all the other people that they converse with.

And with the whole process of app dating comes a massive time sap of distraction and attention, that is hard to match within anything in real life. Maybe it’s time to put the phone down and think of some alternatives?

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

Will Apple and Google really fix our internet addiction?

Digital detox hit the news this week, with Apple the somewhat unlikely creators of a new feature that might help users monitor and spend less time on the very devices they produce. This comes just a few weeks after Google announced similar functionality, and potentially demonstrates a change in attitude from the two tech giants in the way they approach the issue of tech and internet addiction. Is this a step away from the stance that technology can and should be used to help with anything and everything in life, towards a more balanced outlook where we accept that we can in fact have too much of a good thing?

Apple’s unveiling at their recent conference was of their new app Screen Time. According to the Apple website, it will “help customers understand and take control of the time they spend interacting with their iOS devices.” Specifically, the Screen Time app will include detailed activity reports, and allow users to set limits for the amount of time they spend on the various apps they use.

Google’s equivalent offering is ‘Digital Wellbeing’ and on the surface, it seems very similar to Screen Time. The way in which usage data is presented and displayed is almost identical with user-friendly dashboards that let you get a detailed view on where you’re spending your time.

Perhaps the biggest difference in the two apps is the forcefulness in approach they take to the internet addiction issue if a user does indeed go over their allocated app time. In the Beta version of Screen Time, Apple’s app merely sends you a notification that you can choose to ignore. On the other hand, Google’s Beta app seems to temporarily blur out the phone screen; something that can only be overcome with a hard app reset.

Google have also created a hub for their Digital Wellbeing proposition, where they say; “We’re creating tools and features that help people better understand their tech usage, focus on what matters most, disconnect when needed, and create healthy habits for the whole family.” The focus on family is driven home throughout the new hub page, and its in this approach where the app could really play a beneficial part in digital detoxing. One feature Family Link allows parents to manage the device usage of their kids, and even helps you find what Google describe as ‘nutritious content’. Google WiFi will let you schedule internet breaks, or block inappropriate content more intelligently.

In the launch of Screen Time Apple also put emphasis on the benefits the new app could have for parents: “Parents can access their child’s Activity Report right from their own iOS devices to understand where their child spends their time and can manage and set App Limits for them.” The benefits of this approach could in fact offer a non-intrusive way for parents to keep their children’s screen usage in check and consequently improve family life.

Perhaps the question which needs to be raised is whether fighting tech with more tech is really the answer? The curious ironies of these spate of announcements have certainly raised a few eyebrows, and a cynic could argue that tech companies are simply leaping on the digital detox trend as a way of retaining users, countering internet addiction fears and increasing hardware sales. However, the fact that tech giants are taking any position on the internet addiction issue has to be positive one. After all, it’s no secret that there are increasing concerns that products that Apple and Google release are having a negative effect on their users’ mental wellbeing.

So two of the world’s tech giants are starting to have a look at the world they have created and tackle a problem in the only way they know how. These features may not be the answer to the world’s over connected issues, but they are undoubtedly a (small) step in the right direction. If two of the biggest tech companies in the world are thinking about digital detox, then this might just make a few others focus on it too.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

How Social Media Outrage Is Turning Us All Into Keyboard Warriors

Go to the Facebook page of any newspaper and browse the comments of a few posts. It won’t be a pretty sight. It won’t take long to find complaints about how the quality of journalism is going down, that the article is wrong, or that the poster just doesn’t like the person or people being covered. But a step down from this litany of low-level complaints is something much uglier – a steady stream of outrage.

Emotion is a big driver for online content sharing. People mostly share things online because they’ve stirred something up in them, and the main attribute of an emotional driver is that it must be high-arousal. To some degree that explains why we share things we find funny, like Grumpy Cat, or awesome, like an article about an amazing scientific discovery.

Humour and awe are high arousal emotions that are usually positive. But positive emotions do not necessarily travel any better than negativity, and a key emotion on the negative side of the spectrum is outrage. Indeed, a 2013 study by Beihang University found that outrage was more likely to be shared on Chinese social network Weibo than positive high-arousal emotions.

Why Outrage is Easier Online

The more impersonal aspects of social media make expressing outrage all the easier. Offline, expressions of outrage are often constrained by the proximity from the wrong doer. If you are alone on a street in London and see someone urinating against a wall, there is considerable risk in either calling them out publicly there and then or recording their actions for later public shaming.

Proximity on social media is removed – the outrage can be expressed from anywhere, at any time after the wrong doing, so there is little risk. In real life, the shamer will quickly be able to see if the shamed is sorry from their reaction, which may halt further expressions of outrage.

But proximity is absent from someone’s online profile, someone can only respond when they log back in, and even then, their feelings about their behaviour are only likely to be expressed impersonally to a crowd. Additionally, because people can join the weight of an online ‘movement’ or mob, they can easily hide amongst an echo chamber of similar voices.

Discussion Becomes Impossible

Amongst the heavy weight of moral outrage, discussion is nearly impossible. Emotionally-driven and simplified expression drives facts to the point of irrelevance, making debate incredibly circular. It inevitably descends through predictable stages of irritability, distraction, anxiety of the impending reply, with a common outcome of outrage.

This is particularly the case if one side of the argument does not properly understand the subject of the discussion and refuses to acknowledge a different point of view. This descent into a hole of increasing extremity has been coined as Godwin’s law, ‘As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.’

What solutions can be offered in avoiding the whirlpool into outrage? When there’s strong emotion apparent in an online debate, it’s generally better not to get involved. Put your phone down, log off, try and listen to the world around you. Social media can be useful for relationship-building and connectivity – “How are you?” / “What are you up to?” / “Would you like to meet up?” but when you try and debate a contentious point online it will almost certainly go around in circles, wasting your time, attention and emotional energy.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

11 Ways to Guarantee Your Family’s Digital Wellbeing

There’s been a lot written about the importance of digital wellbeing and digital health recently, much of it focused on software tools. But what can parents do by themselves if they want to cut down on family tech time and guarantee digital wellbeing at home? It can be hard to your control tech time as a family, and plenty of us are guilty of slumping down in front of a screen and binge watching box sets on Netflix to unwind (while the kids are on YouTube) – just because it’s easy.

But using screens for leisure and play time, after a day on screens at school, is having an effect on our children’s mental and physical wellbeing. Technology is a necessary part of our lives – for both children and parents – but it’s important for us to try and bring balance to our technology habits and ensure that we’re taking the time to engage with our children in analogue activities and family time.

So how can you cut down on your family tech time and build your digital wellbeing? There are plenty of tips to help your kids cut down on device time, but we’ve got 11 ways to help both you and your children log off – as a family – when you need to.

#1 Be aware of your own habits

Although it may not seem like they are, your kids are very aware of how much time you spend on screens. With 27% of UK children saying that their parents have double standards about technology, you can’t expect your kids to cut back on their screen time when you’re not following the rules you set.

#2 Create digital wellbeing rules together

Both your and your children will be more likely to follow any no-tech rules if they had a say in creating them in the first place. Write up some sensible rules together, as a family. Typically these are things like; no phones during meals, no TVs in the bedroom, phones down after 9pm at night etc.

#3 Encourage socialising

Make sure you keep an eye out for activities that encourage your children to be social in person. This can be anything from clubs and sports, to just spending time together as a family chatting about their week. If you can’t convince your kid to spend time with you, suggest activities that are related to their interests or which involve other kids.

#4 Exercise

During the rebellious teen years, many children will drop out of school or college sports programmes. However, they may be more inclined to carry on with a sport or fitness activity if you let them decide what they want to do. During this exercise time, they’re less likely to use devices, and you can spend more quality time with them while they practice, e.g. go for a run together, ride your bikes into town.

#5 Discuss plans face-to-face

When it comes to establishing family plans for the day, week or month, discuss your plans with the whole family face-to-face rather than reaching for a device. Almost 2 out of 5 UK kids say that their parents communicate with them via messaging apps, email and social media whilst still under the same roof!

Instead of automatically diving into your family WhatsApp group, you’ll stimulate conversation and cut back on boredom, as well as discover what your family actually wants to do.

#6 Encourage no-tech role models

Ed Sheeran, Essana O’Neill and Eddie Redmayne are three high profile celebrities that have been very vocal about how they’ve stepped away from technology. Encourage your kids to look up to them and talk about why they might have decided to cut back on screen time.

#7 Focus on the positives

Try and avoid negative words when discussing reducing tech time with your children. Focus instead on positive outcomes, for example ‘family time’ (unless they’re teenagers, in which case that will make them cringe.)

#8 Ensure that you’re busy

The devil makes work for idle hands, so make sure yours are busy all the time. Suggest you all carry a book with you (we know, retro, huh?) so that you’re not tempted to mindlessly scroll through your phone when you’re on your morning commutes.

#9 Don’t go cold turkey

Make gradual changes to your children’s lives. If you try and take away all tech in one go, you’re more likely to encounter resistance to your plan. Instead, try cutting down on a couple of hours per device at a time.

#10 Keep screens out of their bedrooms

Keeping screens out of your kids rooms is a sure fire way to get them downstairs at least – which is when you spring the trap that you’ve got a family activity planned, or just grab them for a chat.

#11 Stand your ground

When you first introduce these tips and techniques, it’s inevitable you’ll encounter some arguments. But it’s by standing your ground and being consistent that your kids will remember who’s in charge, you, not their devices!

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

Living in Hampshire and experiencing issues with addiction and/or mental health?

Rehab 4 Addiction works closely with rehabilitation centres and outpatient clinics throughout the United Kingdom and the admissions team match a patients’ addiction with an appropriately placed rehabilitation centre.

What is Nomophobia?

Those who are ‘nomophobic’, are arguably those who need a digital detox the most! People that suffer from an overwhelming, crippling, anxiety when their phone has died or has no signal would definitely benefit from some time away from the devices that we all hardly ever go without.

The term literally means ‘no-mobile-phone-phobia’. As we revealed in an earlier article, research commissioned by Royal Mail and carried out by YouGov in 2008, found that 53% of Brits felt anxious when they “lose their mobile phone, run out of battery or credit, or have no network coverage”. Ten years on, multiple studies have proved that this number is now likely to be significantly higher.

Given the original purpose of mobile phones, you might think that those suffering from nomophobia would fear missing out on calls and texts the most, but one study by Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking found that the anxiety was actually related to other aspects of using their smartphones. Our phones have essentially become extensions of ourselves; smartphone use is all about the ultra-easy access to content that has become so important to our day-to-day lives, whether this is personal photos saved on the device, or access to friends’ lives and updates through social apps.

And that’s perhaps a better way to understand nomophobia: the anxiety of being without the phone is not about missing the device itself, but about losing the gateway to the aspect of our lives that the phone connects us to. Our phones offer us a form of escapism, and not having this option to ‘escape’ understandably makes some phone users anxious.

Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking believe the number of people suffering from nomophobia will only increase as technology becomes more personalised, and as we become more and more reliant upon it. And with children growing up today who haven’t had any other experience but 24:7 access to the online world at the click of a button and a few swipes, it’s easy to see how the number of people suffering from separation anxiety when away from their phones will only go up.

A 2015 study by American organisation Pew Research Center found yet more compelling evidence for the existence of nomophobia, especially around the theory that smartphones have become an extension of the self. They found young adults heavily rely now on their mobile phones for job seeking, educational content and health information and that 44% of smartphone owners had a problem doing something they needed to do when they didn’t have their phone with them – the biggest proportion of this being around getting directions. So it’s easy to see why they found that 46% of Americans said they believed that they just “couldn’t live without their phones”, and even easier to see how this over-reliance could lead to feelings of nomophobia.

But it’s not just academics and researchers who have identified the spread of nomophobia. As we’ve written recently, even the Big Tech companies Apple and Google, are trying to do their bit to help users who are overly-dependent on their devices – seemingly as a means to help their customers before they experience serious anxiety themselves. And to be fair to the tech giants, tackling the problem before it becomes a big issue, is a useful way to go.

As always, we recommend taking a step back from using your your phone for absolutely everything you need to do in your life. If something can be done easily face to face or without a digital device, then try it. This approach is the premise of our 30 day digital detox: our 5:2 digital diet where you don’t use your phone two days a week can also help. If you find yourself exploding when you can’t find your phone, with mounting anxiety when your battery is running low, or just can’t stop checking your work emails when away from the office, then you might just be suffering from nomophobia. A digital detox is the best way to get nip any addiction in the bud, and take control again. 

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

Not upgrading your phone is the cure to your Smartphone Addiction

I’m finishing my two year contract of handset payments this month. No big deal – thousands of other people do this all the time of course. But this time, for me, it’s different.

It’s actually the first time I’ve ever entered a two year smartphone handset contract and made it all the way through.

Towards the end of my previous deal, my phone began to run out of battery if it wasn’t charged every hour. With me being an addict, and my then girlfriend guilt tripping me if I didn’t text back after a few minutes, I daren’t send it off for repair.

I remember the day of buying a new handset early as a huge relief. I lay on the sofa and stroked at it like it was my precious. Phew, I was connected again. No more separation anxiety from an inanimate object. Ironically, the romantic relationship didn’t last long anyway, but the one with my smartphone went the distance.

If anything, these last years owning one of the smartest phones on the market has just taught me that such connectivity isn’t just unnecessary – it’s actually bad for you. After the honeymoon period, I felt constantly frazzled due to my proximity to an endless suck of news, dating apps and social media. I was spiralling into smartphone addiction.

For intermittent periods of my contract, I wanted to go completely  cold turkey or just start using a dumb brick again. I actually thought about posting my smartphone to other people so I couldn’t use it. A lot of people who spend a lot of time on smartphones aren’t really conscious of just how much time they spend on their device. But I became aware – I wanted to stop, cut it off entirely, but couldn’t.

But now I don’t really have to make such an apparently radical decision. My contract is up – I’m no longer paying for a handset. My phone screen is cracked, the battery will more than likely fade in the standard fare of planned obsolescence. Within a few months, it will be as good as useless. I think I may just have found a cure to my smartphone addiction.

Will I be bothered? Nope. I can easily take a dumber phone. If there was such thing as a phone that just did Whatsapp, then I would buy it immediately (please tell me if there is in the comments). It’s strange that no one seems to have come up with such an invention yet. Bizarrely, the revamped Nokia 3310 was released with Twitter, but no Whatsapp. So you can read @RealDonaldTrump’s inane tweets, just not contact your friends.

I’ve never really been one for the most advanced handset. I’ve rarely seen the point. Okay camera, reasonable connectivity, being able to actually make some calls and message people are the priorities. I can do without social media and a plethora of whirring, clicking, distracting apps that just want to consume your attention.

Do you really need all this stuff right now? Do you really need to take selfies everywhere? Do you really need to Snapchat your life? I don’t. I’m quite comfortable slowing down when my smartphone loses its life and watching as my smartphone addiction lessens its grip. I’m pretty sure I’ll be a lot more productive.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

4 Things You Didn’t Know About Digital Wellness

You may have heard the term ‘digital wellness’ or ‘digital wellbeing’ being bandied about a lot lately without much idea what it’s about. Digital wellbeing is a relatively new area of the whole wellness area and focuses on our physical and psycho-social health in a digital world.

Given the continually multiplying digital tech we all use, how our health and wellness might be affected is becoming a growing field of interest. A number of very specific conditions have already arisen as a result of the amount of time we are all are spending on digital devices: there’s gaming addiction, which the World Health Organisation listed as a mental health condition only at the very start of this year; there’s the fear and anxiety of being away from mobile phones, officially called ‘nomophobia’; there are the behavioural addictions such as internet and social media addiction; and there’s also a growing number of physical issues such as digital eye strain and ‘text neck‘.

So, with the increase of tech has come increased related health issues, and this has been the catalyst for a movement which wants to learn about and develop ‘digital wellness’; being more responsible about our digital use and also using technology in our personal lives to encourage wellness activities. We’ve put together four things you may not know about digital wellness.

#1 Digital wellness is just as important as any other kind of wellness

Enough research has now been that links the overuse of digital to mental health issues to debunk the idea that looking at digital wellbeing is a fad. Digital covers a wide range of technologies and daily habits, but perhaps the biggest trigger of mental health issues from the tech world is found in the use social media. A study by The Royal Society for Public Health looking at links between social media and mental health found that Instagram was the worst for young mental health. The effects included FOMO, bullying, body image issues, anxiety and loneliness. These are all major issues for young people, and underline the emphasis we should be putting on our digital wellbeing. Not only should we be more responsible for our own social media usage, but more must and should be done to help young people deal with the pressures of social media, and to educate them on some of the problems it can cause if not used responsibly.

#2 A group of behavioural scientists and developers are trying to put users back in control of their digital wellbeing

In Silicon Valley, a small number of behavioural scientists and former developers are trying to counterprogram against the huge amount of distractions our phones offer on a day-to-day basis. From emails, to friend request to news alerts; it’s no secrets that our phones can sometimes take over, but Nick Fitz, a behavioural researcher at Duke University conducted an experiment to prove this. Tracking the smartphone use of more than 200 people, he found that most of them received 60-85 notifications a day. Eliminating alerts resulted in two interesting things; it caused a spike of anxiety with people reportedly feeling like they might be missing out on things (FOMO), but as well as this their stress levels dropped. With this knowledge he worked with his team to develop software that allows users to track their screen time and be armed with self-knowledge to improve their own digital health.

#3 Tech giants Google and Apple have developed apps to try and do the same

Nick Fitz’ technology has been sold to both Google and Apple, who have each factored it into their new features. At a recent conference, Apple announced the release of Screen Time, using the Nick Fitz’ software, which will include detailed activity reports, and allow users to set limits for the amount of time they spend on the various apps they use. Similarly, Google’s new user-friendly dashboards in their Digital Wellbeing app let you get a detailed view on where you’re spending your time. So companies partly responsible for our tech-focused lives in the first place, are now seemingly doing their bit to try improve our digital wellbeing.

#4 Digital can itself be used to encourage digital wellness

Rather than thinking of improving our digital wellness as detoxing from technology altogether, we should also consider how digital itself can be used to improve our digital wellness. This is the approach that both Google and Apple have taken with recent software releases, and something encouraged by a number of smaller technology companies too. From time monitoring apps to mindfulness meditation and reminders to get off screens, digital has an important role to play in encouraging digital wellness.

In theory, we should be able to work out how to achieve an optimum state of health and wellbeing for everyone using tech in their daily lives. Whilst there’s a lot we can discuss around the negative impact technology can have, we could also focus on the positives more – particularly the role of digital in in the health sector. One thing is for sure this new field of digital wellness is here to stay.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

5 Wonderful Ways to Unplug and Connect on Earth Day

At Time To Log Off, we encourage you to find balance with screens in a world where digital is dominant. We share the benefits of logging off and dedicating real time to the relationships that matter most – these can be our relationships with our loved ones, as well as those we have with ourselves. As we also believe that nature is a powerful antidote to our obsession with screens, offering a sense of calm and a place to escape, we’re strong supporters of Earth Day. Earth Day is an international day of awareness around how our consumption affects the planet. In the tech-driven area, we’re often extremely focused on progress, without thinking about the impact of our choices. We believe it’s time to get our heads out from behind our screens to unplug and connect.

This year’s campaign falls on April 22nd and focuses around the increasing challenge of plastic pollution. Did you know that just 9% of plastic produced to date has been recycled? And it’s not just about waste (and how it’s been mismanaged to end up in our oceans), plastic is a petroleum product, which means when manufactured, it releases harmful emissions. To further highlight the benefits of logging off for mind, body and planet, we’re sharing wonderful ways you and your family can unplug and reconnect on April 22nd.

5 Ways to Unplug on Earth Day

 

#1 Join a Beach or Park Clean-Up Party

A great way to get the family outdoors, away from screens and doing something active is by volunteering to help clear rubbish from our beaches and parks. Help protect our animals and make beaches and parks cleaner, safer places to be. The Marine Conversation Society lists beach cleaning events you can get involved with.

#2 Get Gardening

Plastic wrapping around fresh produce can be excessive. In addition to making wiser choices about your fruit and veg while out shopping, why not try growing your own? We love gardening as a mindful activity – it allows your mind to wander and relax. You can enjoy the freshest food possible, help kids learn about caring for plants and enjoy the satisfaction of growing something from scratch.

#3 Make a Walking Pledge

Think about the trips you make using your car. Most of us can hold our hands up and admit that there have been times when we could have walked instead. Walking is another great mindful activity, or a good way to help the family stay active and spend time together. Identify trips you can make by foot and pledge to reduce your car usage as a family.

#4 Look after your Local Wildlife

Put your phone down and use Earth Day as a chance to engage with your surroundings. We share the planet with hundreds of incredible creatures. Encourage them to thrive in your own garden and get the kids enthusiastic about caring about the welfare of even the smallest of animals. The cold winter hasn’t just been a pain for us humans, it has also made life trickier for our wildlife. There are so many ways to give wildlife a helping hand. For example, why not install bird and bat boxes in the garden, or hang feeders and water baths from the trees?

#5 Think About Your Energy Use

As we get hooked on more and more digital devices, our energy requirements are only increasing. Help protect the planet (and your bills) by switching off devices when you’re not using them. We often share how our tendency to use multiple screens at the same time is actually destroying our concentration span, but it’s also a rather inefficient use of energy, too. Switch off background noise and switch on to your self. It’s not just the planet that’ll be benefiting!

Join us in supporting Earth Day on 22nd April and try out our ways to unplug and connect. Share your experiences and spread the word about this important cause using the hashtag #EarthDay2018.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

Are You a Toilet Texter?

With every addiction, there’s a recognition moment. Maybe it’s 10am and you’re cracking open a bottle of Stella; maybe you’re lighting one cigarette off of another; maybe you have replaced the bread in your sandwiches for potato waffles. Whether it’s food, alcohol, cigarettes or technology, everyone has that moment where you look at your behaviour and think: wow, is this really what I’m doing now?

That moment come for many of us, I think, when we realise that we’re one of the 75 per cent of people who use their phone on the toilet. Come on, now: there’s no use being shy about it. Who hasn’t had a little browse on their Instagram in the work loo? Plus, when your computer screen faces the whole office, it can be incredibly freeing to just take a couple of minutes to wee and rearrange your ASOS basket. This is your “me” time, and if you want to tweet while defecating, that is absolutely your business!

Take a step back: this is that moment we talked about earlier. It’s easy to rationalise why you’re doing the thing you’re doing – I need fridge space for the milk! I simply must drink this Stella at 10am! – but sometimes, you need to reassess the thing from an outsider’s perspective. Do you really need to take your phone to the toilet? Doesn’t it strike you as strange that, during the most private and intimate moment of your day, you’re choosing to spend it with thousands of strangers, however silently?

Ok, so maybe this isn’t the most delicate topic in the world to bring up in a blog post, but it calls up some incredibly interesting questions about how we’ve started to conflate ‘private time’ with public time. Increasingly, the time we used to spend staring into space is being replaced by scrolling, liking and responding. We convince ourselves that it’s a few harmless minutes to unwind, when in reality, our brains are exhausting themselves trying to keep up with the constant information.

Aside from what toilet texting is doing to our brains, we have to truly consider what it could be doing to our health. Think about it: you wash your hands right after using the toilet, but you don’t ever wash your screen. The bacteria that forms on your hands sticks to your phone screen, accumulating in the tiny crevices of your device.

“There are water and air particles that harbour in the little creases of the phone,’ says Dr Anchita Karmakar, a GP based in Australia. “And phone covers and cases are usually made out of rubber, which is a warm and comfortable harbouring ground for bacteria.”

This leaves us vulnerable to salmonella, E.coli, and a whole list of bacteria that has the potential to make us very sick. And that’s just the viral side of things: the strain of sitting there for those extra minutes can also result in piles.

Maybe it’s time to revisit the good ol’ magazine stack next to the loo: in fact, Stack sends you a new, highly curated magazine every month, and you only pay $6 an issue.  Buy one as a subtle hint for the toilet texter in your family?

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com