Our last year has been a tough one for FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Whether locked down or muddling through loosened restrictions, we haven’t been living our lives in any way like we were pre-pandemic. Even pre-pandemic, in 2017, we were struggling with the idea of FOMO, so it’s no wonder that around the world people are finding the current situation even more challenging.
Many of us have now spent months without seeing friends or family, with only the increasingly cancelled Zoom to sustain us. We’re having to live our entire lives within a bubble, whether that’s parents, children, strangers (not so strange after nine months together), friends, or even just a house plant. Yet through social media, we can watch as those around the world, and those in less restricted regions than ours, can meet up and spend quality time with each other. It’s no wonder many of us are suffering with FOMO and reaching breaking point.
Embrace your bubble
Our first piece of advice is to embrace JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) instead of being stuck in a FOMO-only state of mind. We’ve written about it many times before- even once during the US presidential election when the news was getting a bit much for all of us. JOMO is vital to a healthy life in lockdown. If you have a good relationship with the people you live with, cultivate it. Try to enjoy home life so much that you no longer feel isolated by the restrictions. One tip for this is to get involved with analogue activities such as puzzling, board games or cards which you can get everyone involved with. Once you are fighting it out to the death in the final round of ‘go fish’ you won’t be worried about everyone else having a better lockdown- we promise!
Comparison culture
One of the many causes of FOMO is social media. Comparison culture, no matter who the comparison is with, makes COVID-19 and staying home even harder. Just the use of social media makes you more likely to break restrictions, and we’re pretty sure that’s because of comparison culture and the feeling that everyone else is having a ‘better’ pandemic than you.
How do you fight that?
Well, our advice is, as usual, log off! A social media detox will do wonders for your mental health, and if it helps you to stop breaking restrictions it could also do wonders for your physical health! We don’t mean don’t stay in contact with your friends and family, but why not stick to private messaging services such as iMessage and WhatsApp? If you’re talking to people you know, directly, you’ll be less likely to struggle, and the connection you make will nourish you far longer than an hour scrolling.
Remember we are all struggling
Despite what you see on social media, we know that COVID-19 is hitting everyone hard. Try to remember that for everyone you see having a great night in with their friends, those same friends have been in a fair few fights no doubt, about dish washing or whose turn it is to hoover. Even when restrictions are lifted, social media will remain unrepresentative of the truth of all of our lives. Take a deep breath, and ask questions of every post you see, message the poster to see how they are doing, or stick to our advice above and log off!
We’re looking forward to a time in 2021 when we’re nostalgic for all the time spent at home, so appreciate every moment you have with your loved ones, each day is precious.
In 2020 we spent more time than ever online. With a new lockdown announced in the UK, it looks like we are set to spend even more time online, staring down at our phones. In a world where our only connection is through screens, it’s no wonder that we are so terrified sometimes to be without them. However, nomophobia is not a healthy reaction to being away from our devices. If you want to beat your nomophobia for good, here are some strategies to get you on the right track.
Become less reliant
We feel anxious when we don’t have our phones because we have become so reliant on them. We’re anxious because we no longer have access to maps, digital banking, contacts, shopping lists, search engines and more. So, the first step in being able to cope without your smartphone is to make yourself more self-sufficient. A mere ten years ago the vast majority of us were happy to go out to the shops without a portable encyclopaedia, digital map and tick box shopping list – we had a relaxed approach, rolling with what came up rather than freezing and turning to our phones for guidance. If we could do it then, we can do it now. Why not:
Write the shopping list down on a piece of paper and go on your weekly shop without a phone or
Try a different walk in your neighbourhood without a phone to see what you discover, you could even
Take some cash out and go out for the evening without your phone (when you’re allowed to do that of course in your part of the world!).
Try shopping without your phone
Very few activities really require a phone. Once you experience life occasionally without yours, we think you’ll be unlikely to turn back.
Practice, practice, practice
Another important step on the journey to overcoming nomophobia is to practice longer and longer periods of time of being without your phone. It would be easy to go to the shops without it once, experience the high of independence from technology and then revert to your old ways immediately. If you don’t want to be overcome by crippling dread each time your battery dies, you need to practice regularly. You could pick one of the suggestions previously mentioned and do it once a week or once a month as a way to keep your nomophobia at bay.
It will also undoubtedly prove to you that another aspect of nomophobia: the fear of being unreachable in a crisis, is incredibly unlikely to occur. The world can manage without you if you log off for an hour, especially if you tell them in advance.
Try exploring your neighbourhood, you will be amazed what you had never noticed before!
Go cold turkey
If all else fails you and nomophobia is taking over your life we suggest going completely cold turkey. This could take many different forms depending on your lifestyle. You will know best what works. You could take a week off to reset. You could buy a ‘dumb’ phone to use on weekends, or when you are not working, as we have suggested in the past. If navigation is what causes you anxiety, you could buy a pocket sized map to carry with you. If it’s fear of being unreachable, you could rediscover your landline.
There are many ways to tackle nomophobia, different things will work for different people, but we hope you now have a few ideas you can get to work on. Take this year to tackle your fear and hopefully reduce one aspect of anxiety in 2021.
Em 2020 passamos mais tempo do que nunca online. Com um novo bloqueio anunciado no Reino Unido, parece que vamos passar ainda mais tempo online, olhando para nossos telefones. Em um mundo onde nossa única conexão é através das telas, não é de admirar que estejamos tão aterrorizados às vezes por estarmos sem eles. No entanto, a nomofobia não é uma reação saudável ao estar longe de nossos dispositivos. Se você quer vencer sua nomofobia para sempre, aqui estão algumas estratégias para colocá-lo no caminho certo.
Torne-se menos dependente
Nos sentimos ansiosos quando não temos nossos telefones porque nos tornamos tão dependentes deles. Estamos ansiosos porque não temos mais acesso a mapas, bancos digitais, contatos, listas de compras, mecanismos de busca e muito mais. Então, o primeiro passo para ser capaz de lidar sem o seu smartphone é tornar-se mais autossuficiente. Há apenas dez anos, a grande maioria de nós estava feliz em ir às lojas sem uma enciclopédia portátil, mapa digital e lista de compras de caixas de carrapatos – tivemos uma abordagem descontraída, rolando com o que surgiu em vez de congelar e recorrer aos nossos telefones para orientação. Se pudéssemos fazer isso, então, podemos fazê-lo agora. Por que não:
Escreva a lista de compras em um pedaço de papel e vá em sua loja semanal sem um telefone ou
Tente uma caminhada diferente em seu bairro sem um telefone para ver o que você descobrir, você poderia até mesmo
Pegue algum dinheiro e saia para a noite sem o seu telefone (quando você está autorizado a fazer isso, é claro, em sua parte do mundo!).
Tente fazer compras sem o seu telefone
Poucas atividades realmente requerem um telefone. Uma vez que você experimenta a vida ocasionalmente sem a sua, achamos que será improvável que você volte atrás.
Prática, prática, prática
Outro passo importante na jornada para superar a nomofobia é praticar períodos mais longos e longos de tempo sem o telefone. Seria fácil ir às lojas sem ela uma vez, experimentar a alta independência da tecnologia e depois reverter para seus velhos costumes imediatamente. Se você não quer ser superado por medo incapacitante cada vez que sua bateria morre, você precisa praticar regularmente. Você pode escolher uma das sugestões mencionadas anteriormente e fazê-lo uma vez por semana ou uma vez por mês como uma maneira de manter sua nomofobia à distância.
Também provará, sem dúvida, a você que outro aspecto da nomofobia: o medo de ser inalcançável em uma crise, é incrivelmente improvável de ocorrer. O mundo pode se virar sem você se você sair por uma hora, especialmente se você disser a eles com antecedência.
Tente explorar seu bairro, você vai se surpreender com o que você nunca tinha notado antes!
Abandonar um vício abruptamente
Se tudo mais falhar com você e a nomofobia está tomando conta da sua vida, sugerimos ir completamente frio. Isso pode tomar muitas formas diferentes dependendo do seu estilo de vida. Você saberá melhor o que funciona. Você pode tirar uma semana de folga para reiniciar. Você pode comprar um telefone 'burro' para usar nos fins de semana, ou quando você não está trabalhando, como sugerimos no passado. Se a navegação é o que te causa ansiedade, você pode comprar um mapa do tamanho do bolso para levar com você. Se é medo de ser inalcançável, você pode redescobrir seu telefone fixo.
Existem muitas maneiras de combater a nomofobia, coisas diferentes funcionarão para pessoas diferentes, mas esperamos que agora você tenha algumas ideias em que você possa trabalhar. Aproveite este ano para enfrentar seu medo e espero reduzir um aspecto da ansiedade em 2021.
Under 2020 tillbringade vi mer tid än någonsin online. Med en ny nedstängning som tillkännages i Storbritannien ser det ut som om vi kommer att spendera ännu mer tid online och stirra ner på våra telefoner. I en värld där vår enda koppling är genom skärmar är det inte konstigt att vi är så rädda ibland för att vara utan dem. Men nomophobia är inte en hälsosam reaktion på att vara borta från våra enheter. Om du vill slå din nomophobia för gott, här är några strategier för att få dig på rätt spår.
Bli mindre beroende
Vi känner oss oroliga när vi inte har våra telefoner eftersom vi har blivit så beroende av dem. Vi är oroliga eftersom vi inte längre har tillgång till kartor, digital bank, kontakter, inköpslistor, sökmotorer och mer. Så det första steget i att kunna klara sig utan din smartphone är att göra dig mer självförsörjande. För bara tio år sedan var de allra flesta av oss glada över att gå ut till butikerna utan ett bärbart uppslagsverk, digital karta och inköpslista för kryssruta – vi hade ett avslappnat tillvägagångssätt, rullade med det som kom upp snarare än att frysa och vända oss till våra telefoner för vägledning. Om vi kunde göra det då, kan vi göra det nu. Varför inte:
Skriv ner inköpslistan på ett papper och gå på din veckobutik utan telefon eller
Prova en annan promenad i ditt grannskap utan telefon för att se vad du upptäcker, du kan till och med
Ta ut lite pengar och gå ut för kvällen utan din telefon (när du får göra det naturligtvis i din del av världen!).
Prova att handla utan din telefon
Mycket få aktiviteter kräver verkligen en telefon. När du upplever livet ibland utan ditt, tror vi att du sannolikt inte kommer att vända tillbaka.
Öva, öva, öva
Ett annat viktigt steg på resan mot att övervinna nomophobia är att öva längre och längre tidsperioder av att vara utan din telefon. Det skulle vara lätt att gå till butikerna utan det en gång, uppleva det höga oberoendet från tekniken och sedan återgå till dina gamla sätt omedelbart. Om du inte vill bli överväldigad av förlamande rädsla varje gång batteriet dör, måste du öva regelbundet. Du kan välja ett av de förslag som tidigare nämnts och göra det en gång i veckan eller en gång i månaden som ett sätt att hålla din nomophobia i schack.
Det kommer också utan tvekan att bevisa för er att en annan aspekt av nomophobia: rädslan för att vara oåtkomlig i en kris är oerhört osannolikt att inträffa. Världen klarar sig utan dig om du loggar ut i en timme, särskilt om du berättar för dem i förväg.
Försök utforska ditt grannskap, du kommer att bli förvånad över vad du aldrig hade märkt tidigare!
Avsluta plötsligt
Om allt annat sviker dig och nomophobia tar över ditt liv föreslår vi att du går helt kall kalkon. Detta kan ta många olika former beroende på din livsstil. Du vet bäst vad som fungerar. Du kan ta ledigt en vecka för att återställa. Du kan köpa en "dum" telefon att använda på helgerna, eller när du inte arbetar, som vi har föreslagit tidigare. Om navigering är det som orsakar dig ångest, kan du köpa en fickstorlekskarta att bära med dig. Om det är rädsla för att vara oåtkomlig, kan du återupptäcka din fasta telefon.
Det finns många sätt att ta itu med nomophobia, olika saker kommer att fungera för olika människor, men vi hoppas att du nu har några idéer du kan få arbeta med. Ta detta år för att ta itu med din rädsla och förhoppningsvis minska en aspekt av ångest 2021.
Another obvious symptom of being addicted to social media is that your finger automatically clicks on an app. Have you ever been standing at a bus stop or in a waiting room, with your phone open and clicked on a social media app out of habit? Only once you’ve already clicked do you realise that you did it at all.
Top tip: Regularly re-shuffle your home screen so that you have to actively look for your social media apps and consciously choose to click on them.
#4 Doomscrolling
Here is a topic we have written about before- the phenomenon of doomscrolling. This is when you spend hours mindlessly scrolling on social media, going from one bad news story to the next, drawn in by negativity. It is one of the more damaging aspects of social media as it can put you in a very negative headspace. If you find yourself in this position regularly we recommend taking a sabbatical, or at least putting a time limit on your social media.
#5 Deleting is scary
Lastly, the most obvious sign of addiction perhaps, the idea of deleting your social media accounts, or even switching them off for one day, is scary. If you feel a palpable sense of fear at the idea of not being on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok, then you probably need to do just that. Take a couple of days away, see how you feel, and readjust your interaction with social media accordingly.
As we enter our third national lockdown in the UK, our screen time has never been higher. I think we’d all agree it’s getting harder and harder to step away from a screen. Ofcom found that during the first lockdown, Brits were spending 40% of their time watching TV and online video, and that’s before working online, or browsing social media. But, this time we’re are not just entering lockdown, we’re also starting a new year. So, here are our tips to help you revamp your screen use and get the most out of this new year!
#1 Turn it off
The first and most obvious tip is – turn it off. It’s easier said than done, each one of us will have fears about being unreachable, even for a short period of time. However, fears like that are almost entirely unfounded. To kickstart a new habit of leaving your phone off for period of time, why not try to turn it off for one hour a day- it’ll be harder than you think- then you can ramp it up.
#2 Leave it at home
An extension of the first tip is to leave your phone behind when you leave the house. Lockdown is actually the perfect time to start this as you have no excuses- you can’t go anywhere other than to shop or exercise anyway! We challenge you to leave your phone behind when you do your weekly shop, write a physical list for a change and go out into the world. It may seem scary or unnerving at first but we lived without up until a decade ago- you can do it!
# 3 Phone-free Zones
Another way to ensure that you don’t bring your phone everywhere, surgically attached to your hand is to enforce physical boundaries. For example, you could ban phones from the dinner table, or your bedroom as we have often recommended. This way, you have to focus on conversation with friends, family or your partner and, as a side benefit, you’ll get much better sleep.
#4 Set time limits
If physical boundaries aren’t working for you, or you just want to take that next step you could now enforce limits around. For example: ‘I won’t go on my phone before breakfast/ after dinner’ or ‘I will reduce my phone use by an hour, through checking the screen time function in settings’.
Optimising your devices to reduce use
We know that putting your phone down can be difficult, especially if you are only relying on human willpower to fight an addictive technology, so we we have some suggestions for optimising your device, to make it easier to reduce your time on it.
#5 Delete apps
Again, we are starting with the obvious: take away the time suckers. You can look through the screen-time feature on smartphones to see which apps you spend the most time on, but it’s likely you already know. Common culprits include social media apps. We’re not saying you have to delete your accounts, but if you delete the app you’ll have to log on to the desktop each time you want to check it- meaning you’ll do it less and less.
#6 Turn off notifications
Another variation on the theme of deleting apps is to turn off your notifications for those time-sucker apps. For example, you could turn off the notifications on your email but leave the red badge on the app so you know how many you have- meaning you will not miss anything but won’t be interrupted in your day. You could employ similar strategies for Facebook Messenger and other social platforms which regularly interrupt your focus and time.
#7 Greyscale
One of the most addictive qualities of our phones is their display. It’s colourful and attractive, so that that our eyes are drawn to the apps which will take up most of our time- all social media platforms have brightly coloured apps don’t they? It might not sound convincing but turn the display to greyscale and soon you’ll notice a difference in your ability to put your phone down.
#8 Reorder your home screen
One of the reasons we end up spending hours longer than intended on our phones, is that our fingers automatically reach for our favourite apps, whether they be games, social medias or anything else. So, our top tip is to regularly rearrange your home screens so that you have to actively look for the apps you want and consciously make the decision to click on them- this small barrier may give you the time to decide to put your phone down. When reordering your home screen, you can also place tools at the front and hide the less useful apps on subsequent screens, to remind yourself of the primary use of the device each time you open it.
We hope that these tips will give you some ideas to help you put your phone down, this lockdown and this year, as we hopefully move towards a life a bit closer to normal in 2021.
10 Digital Detox Resolutions for 2021, after a Year on Screens
Happy New Year! Glad 2020 is over as much as we are? Pandemic apart, it’s the time of year where we think about what we’d like to leave behind in the old year (all of it?), and what habits will serve us better in the new one. We’re suggesting ten digital detox resolutions which will make a big difference to your physical and mental health as you start this new year. These ten tweaks will benefit every aspect of your life, improving your relationships, helping you sleep, giving you more time to focus on the things that matter to you, leaving you happier, focused and more productive.
Let’s leave behind what feels like the entire year we spent on screens in 2020 and go into 2021 with an appreciation of how to use screens for good, jettisoning the bad.
10 Digital Detox Resolutions for a Healthier, Happier New Year
#1 Set boundaries
Set your ‘do not cross’ lines for screen use
Screen use per se has never been a problem. Screens help us connect, work, and inspire and entertain us. The problem comes when we use screens without any boundaries. Boundaries between work and play, boundaries between day and night, boundaries between essential and time-wasting use. This first of our digital detox resolutions is the most important. Set clear boundaries for your screen use. It doesn’t matter what these are, how small or how ambitious, just set some limits or rules and then monitor how you do against them. You could start with just one hour away from your smartphone a day and see how that feels. Most people find this hard to do when they start, so don’t give up at the first hurdle. Give it a go.
#2 Protect your sleep
Sleep like a dog does in 2021, easily.
Sleep is the first casualty of our screen obsession. When we’re tired we lack the self-control to stop that mindless night-time scrolling that can impact our mental health – and, if we’re spending the time online shopping, can put a serious dent in our pocket. Think about how you can introduce small hurdles to any late-night screen scrolling. If you can’t bear to get an alarm clock and/or put your phone outside the door, plug it in the other side of the bedroom so you have to get out of bed to check it. This deceptively simple hacks cuts down on quite a bit of nocturnal scrolling. Set nighttime mode on your phone and logout of social media apps too, when you go to bed. All of these will give you the time to think about whether you really want to spend another hour on your phone after dark.
#3 Get outside, every day
Just put one foot in front of the other and get outside
This isn’t another of those resolutions about taking up running or even jumping on a bike. We simply suggest that you get outside your four walls at least once every day and gently walk to a pre-determined place and back. The point here is that it’s actually harder to walk and scroll (though plenty of people manage it of course), than it is to sit and scroll, and the fresh air and natural daylight will give your Zoom-addled brain and eyes a rest. If you want to go for a run of course, that’s up to you.
#4 Put people before phones
Even socially distanced, you can still catch-up face to face
Last year we were very restricted in who we could meet up with face-to-face. Despite this (or maybe because of it), many people reported that even those they were spending the most time with spent hours on their phones ignoring them. Phubbing (snubbing someone for your phone) doesn’t feel good when it happens to you and we’re all guilty of it. Make a resolution that when a choice is presented between a person or a screen, to always choose the person. And seek out opportunities to connect in person more in 2021. We’ve all had enough of video calls to last a decade.
#5 Find mindful alternatives
Find your mindful alternative for 2021
We’ve written a lot about the joys of yoga, crafting, cookery and puzzles but your mindful activity doesn’t have to be any of these. Simply find something you can do off screens which utterly absorbs you and enables you to completely switch off from everything else going on around you. When we are in a mindful state, also called being ‘in flow’, it gives our brains time to rest and leaves us feeling rested and rejuvenated,. Make 2021 the year you find, or rediscover, what this activity is for you.
#6 Tame notifications
Stop your phone shouting at you
The silicon valley tech companies that design the hardware and software we’re all so in thrall to, make them very difficult to ignore. They buzz, vibrate, ring and interrupt us constantly. With an average of 40 apps on each of our smartphones that’s a lot of notifications. Make 2021 the year you radically cut down on the notifications you get from your smartphone which pull you away from what you’re doing and interrupt your focus. Be ruthless about which notifications are essential and which you can leave behind in 2020. The fewer notifications you get, the better.
#7 Press pause regularly
Pause more, without your phone, in 2021
If you can’t get outside, we want you to at least try some mini-pauses away from your screens, indoors. We suggest you actually schedule these like regular dates with yourself in your diary. That way work and distractions won’t just bleed into time you’ve carved out for yourself. Fifteen minutes, just you and a cup of tea, staring out the window or listening to music, with no smartphone in your hand is a good place to start.
#8 Go audio
Not every call has to be a video call
When we spend too much time on screens our eyes start to become very sore and ‘gritty’ with the reduced blinking we do. Digital eye strain is on the rise and last year we spent hours more time staring at screens than usual. We suggest that you look for audio alternatives wherever you can to staring at screens in 2021. Podcasts are a brilliant place to start for your entertainment alternatives (we’d love you to try out ours), and audio calls rather than video calls, are another good strategy. Make it your goal to find as many ways as possible to substitute audio for video in 2021.
#9 Keep track (but not obsessively)
Keep an eye on how you spend your screen time
If you want to cut down on screen use in 2021 you need to know what the starting point is. Built-in features on iPhones and android devices can all tell you how many hours you’re currently spending on your screens. Don’t get obsessive about tracking, as we think that’s pretty unhealthy too, but arm yourself with the knowledge on the size of the problem right now. Then take action. Check back again in a week or so, to see if any of your changes have made a difference. Then tweak and repeat. Think of it like calorie counting, not a habit you’d want to do for life, but very useful every now and again to get information on your habits.
#10 Eliminate digital junk food
Like food, not all digital choices are healthy
Talking of calories, the last of our digital detox resolutions is about working out what’s healthy and what isn’t, about your existing screen use. “But we need our screens for connection, for work, for navigation” we hear whenever the subject of digital detox comes up. Well, of course you do. But you know as well as we do, that that type of screen use isn’t the problem. It’s the two hours you spend on Instagram when you only jumped on to check the latest updates. It’s the hours spent doom scrolling when you meant to check one news site for the headlines. In the same way that you know what food is healthy and what’s junk, the best thing you can do for yourself in 2021 is to work out the same for your screen use. We bet you know already where the problem areas are. Tackle them! If you can keep the productive and inspiring aspects of the digital world, cutting down on the toxic and time-wasting, this will be the most life-enhancing of all of our digital detox resolutions. Good luck, we’re rooting for you!
If you need more practical help and inspiration, our digital detox course has a 40% discount until 31st January 2021, with the discount code NEWYEAR40, to help you with all your digital detox and digital wellbeing resolutions this year.
We learned a lot in 2020. In January, most of us had never heard of coronavirus, let alone understood pandemic modelling, vaccine trials and mask legislation. But 2020 hasn’t just taught us about COVID-19. Through lockdowns all across the globe, we learnt more about ourselves and others than ever before; how we interact, work, live and what we need to do all of that all successfully. 2020 was the year of the screen. We all stayed home to work, learn and connect online. Here’s our round-up of the Top Ten things we learned about screens this year, and how they impacted us, both for good and for bad.
#1 They helped us connect
The best aspect about lockdown was the new avenues created to connect with our loved ones online. Suddenly Zoom quizzes sprang up in every spare evening, families called regularly and despite a lack of plans, everyone was kept up-to-date. Although we are living through an incredibly stressful time, screens helped us to connect and for that we will be forever grateful.
#2 They showed us we CAN work remotely
We also learnt that (for the most part) we can work from home. It may be challenging, complicated by housemates and children underfoot, shared workspaces, poor wifi and more, but it is possible. It’s been so successful that many are considering moving their workforce to remote working, or at least hybrid working– potentially changing the shape of office work forever.
#3 They inspired creativity and innovation
We were not only treated to new forms of connection, we were also able to watch incredible entertainment created around the restrictions of COVID. The Old Vic hosted virtual productions of ‘A Christmas Carol‘ whilst Comic Relief put on a Zoom-based Cinderella pantomime, both with great success. Despite the losses the entertainment industry, (amongst others), suffered this year the restrictions have inspired amazing innovation.
We’ve highlighted the issue of doom-scrolling before. It’s the act of mindlessly scrolling through one negative story after another in an endless cycle. Due to all that extra time, and a tsunami of bad news, this bad habit boomed in 2020, leading to many falling deeper into negativity and anxiety as they were unable to switch off.
#6 They helped conspiracies spread too easily
Our founder, Tanya Goodin, has written about the difficulties arising from the prevalent spread of conspiracies online. Whether it is QAnon, anti-vaxxer or plan-demic related, many conspiracies have risen to prominence in 2020. Fake News, mistrust of the media and isolation have all worked in tandem to create an environment rich for manipulation, and too many of us are falling for it. If you’re worried about someone in your life falling foul of a conspiracy theory, we recommend listening to our podcast with Prof. Emily Bell on the subject, or you could read Goodin’s article for some tips.
#7 They made our sleep deteriorate
Since the dawn of Time To Log Off we’ve been highlighting the impacts of screens on our quality of sleep. Before the pandemic, 42% of adults missed out on sleep due to excess screens, in 2020 this has dramatically increased. Good quality sleep is one of the main building blocks of life and essential for maintaining good mental health. So, we recommend limiting screen use, especially before bed and in the bedroom. Take back control of your sleep habits.
Over 3/4 of American families committed to taking part in a digital detox after lockdown, due to their experience of increased screen usage during the pandemic. We found we all needed time to decompress without screens this year. The ways we have used screens in 2020 has meant that our work, interaction and entertainment were all totally reliant on them. Most of us felt a large change with this shift online, and acknowledged the need for time logged off.
#10 They highlighted there’s no substitute for in-person interaction
Despite the many positives that screens have brought us in 2020, we learned that they can never be a substitute for face-to-face interactions. Whilst we are restricted by the pandemic, we have to use screens for work and for connecting with loved ones but it has taught us without a doubt that we need to prioritise human interactions over screen-based ones.
One thing 2020 taught us, is to appreciate the many advantages of the digital world as well as highlighting its flaws. We’ve spent many years trying to show what we miss out on when we spend too much time online and 2020 emphasised that for everyone. Let’s look forward to 2021, when we can spend much less time in the virtual world and appreciate the real world once more.
In 2020 we were glued to our screens like never before. Was a digital detox going to be an idea that had simply had its time, we wondered? The irony was, we’d spent six years trying to show everyone what they miss out when they spend too much time on screens – and the pandemic did our job for us. We all flocked to our devices, and we were very grateful they were there, but never have we been so aware of what they couldn’t do for us. Never have we all missed human contact so much.
Record numbers of you came to our site (up 35% on 2019), to get help and guidance in managing your screens healthily this year. We carried on producing our podcast right the way through the year, and we produced digital detox blogs and articles every week on topics you requested. Here, at the end of this rollercoaster year, is a round-up of our 10 most popular posts from 2020:
Social media, and our struggle with it, was a real theme this year. Our post at #10 on the year’s list gave you some ideas on how you could beat your addiction to scrolling, in a year when everyone found putting their devices away especially hard.
We thought we’d give you a bit of reading material around the subject of digital detox this year, so we laid out a timeline of how the trend has evolved. Users have been concerned about the impact of screen time on our mental and physical health since the dawn of the WorldWideWeb. We trawled through the records to show you that the history of anxiety about screens, and attempts to spend time off them, is as long as the history of screens itself.
As screen time mounted in the pandemic, everyone began to worry about how frazzled and burnt out they were feeling, especially from all those video calls. So we produced this piece to look at screen burnout specifically, and what you could do to keep it at bay.
Of course, we produced a lot of content focused particularly around the pandemic and what it meant for our screen habits. In this blog we looked at how we could distinguish between a healthy and productive use of screens and how we could guard against the type of unhealthy habits which were becoming amplified as we spent more and more time on devices.
Learning from home was a big topic this year as parents and children alike grappled with how to manage it from bedrooms, kitchens and sofas across the globe. We gathered tips from experts on how to make distance learning work, and how not to let it stress you out.
As the pandemic hit, this blog looked at whether we needed to worry about our smartphones themselves as a source of virus transmission, as well as how we could use them to get the most up-to-date and trustworthy information about its spread. We talked about misinformation and the multiplying of conspiracies about the virus here too.
Every year we produce a series of resolutions on our screen habits (we’ll be doing one for 2021), and it’s always one of our most popular blogs. Looking back to the beginning of this year, it’s fascinating to see what we thought we might achieve this year. Spending less time on screens turned out not to be one of them!
TikTok started 2020 on a strong footing and absolutely boomed in the pandemic as kids (and adults) used it to keep connected and entertain themselves. We’ve always had very big concerns about this platform and felt we had to warn you about some of the dangers. We obviously hit the spot as this was one of our Top 3 most read blogs this year.
Our second most popular blog revealed what you were all most worried about this year. “Am I addicted to social media” was one of the primary ways people searched for, and found, our site in 2020 and this blog tried to help with laying out some signs and symptoms to be aware of. We hope it helped!
Our No.1 post this year was about the ‘new’ phenomenon of dopamine fasting. Which of course is pretty much a digital detox by another, cooler, new name! We talked about the differences and similarities and how to do one and you read this piece in your thousands. We really hope it meant you also tried it, and put screens down for some of your year.
2020 has been a year, for everyone. It’s safe to say it took all our plans and through them up in the air – like all of yours. But, we realised very early on that the demand for our digital detox expertise was actually going to keep growing this year as everyone grappled with enforced screen time, and it really did. You downloaded our podcasts and you kept reading our blogs in numbers that surpassed anything we had seen before. We hope they helped in some way. Do let us know!
2020 has been a hard year. It’s also been a screen-filled year as we all connected with our loved ones, worked and even taught our kids on screens. After such a year it’s understandable that many of us want to log off for the holidays and enjoy a screen-free Christmas, but that’s easier said than done, especially if you are spending Christmas alone. So, we’ve put together five tips to help you stay away from screens as much as possible this year, and finally unwind.
#1 Schedule screen-time
2020 is an unusual year. Normally we would recommend putting down screens entirely, at least on the big day. However, this year most of the South of the UK will be isolated in Tier 4 and the rest of the country will only be able to visit one household. This means that many of us will spend time video calling our loved ones, trying to spend time with them on Christmas Day, especially if we are spending the holidays alone. Our advice is to schedule that screen time. Book in calls in advance and try to only use your devices for that communication. By all means, call family and friends, but don’t spend the hours between those calls mindlessly doom scrolling, especially with all the bad news out there this year!
#2 Phone-free food
Whilst we may not be able to achieve an entirely screen-free Christmas, the least we can all aim for is a screen-free meal, (like we all managed only a couple of decades ago). So, we recommend instituting a phone box for everyone to put their devices in during the meal, so that you can all focus on the food and truly appreciate the people you are with. You’ll be able to have a much better conversation. And even if you’re alone you will appreciate the ability to mindfully eat without distraction.
#3 Analogue activities
Another great way to keep yourself (and your family) offline for a screen-free Christmas is to organise analogue activities to take up some of your phone time. You could do a puzzle, play a board game, read a book, or just sit and snack whilst you listen to some Christmas carols. A firm favourite at Time to Log Off is the Hat Game. This involves everyone putting names of celebs (or at least people everyone at the gathering knows) into a hat, and then in teams one person describing all the people they pick out with one minute on the clock, until the hat is empty. You can even add more rounds with a limit on words, or make it charades!
#4 Get outside
One of the best ways to ensure you have a blissfully uninterrupted Christmas is to go outside. MIND recommend spending time outside to help with your mental health, something we all probably need after 2020. On top of that, going outside is also a great way to take your focus away from your screen, you could even leave it behind! We recommend a Christmas walk to get yourself moving again after dinner, but you could also just sit in a garden, or even go for a bike ride if you’re feeling particularly restless.
#5 Lead by example
If you want to create an environment free of screens for your family, or housemates, this Christmas, the best thing you can do is to lead by example. If you’re not on your phone at dinner, whilst playing a game, or as you talk, hopefully they will catch the hint and put theirs down more too. If the people you’re trying to convince are family that might be harder, but as long as you are taking part in screen-free Christmas as much as you are asking them to, you should be in with a good chance to get some analogue time this year.
From everyone at Time to Log Off we wish you a happy Christmas!
