Tag: Answer Addiction

New Perspectives

In recent years, marijuana has been linked on weed-advocate websites to reduced levels of anxiety or depression. So, there are many smokers who strongly believe the drug can help with mental health. But some of their claims are loose, at best.

Research shows variable influence of marijuana on mental health issues…and some research even indicates that conditions like anxiety can be positively associated with cannabis use.

More and more young people are trying cannabis on a daily basis. In fact, by the end of today, the National Institutes on Drug abuse estimate that about 6,600 will have taken their first toke. Teenagers just don’t see any harm in marijuana use. Especially, when comparing it to the negative effects of alcohol or harder drugs.

Furthermore, weed has become widely more available to teenagers. According to a study by the Lancet Psychiatry, nearly every high school student knows of someone who smokes. And about 60% know where these smokers get their weed from.

Combining cannabis’ easy accessibility and medical benefits gives us an understanding as to why more teenagers are trying it.

However, when considering the fact that weed is more potent than it was twenty years ago, there’s much concern in how this all affects their mental health. And it’s not just teenagers to be worry about. Adults who smoke chronically are also putting themselves in danger of developing mental illnesses.

How Can Marijuana Negatively Affect The Brain?

When discussing the impact cannabis has on your mental health, there are two important factors to keep in mind.

FACTOR 1: The first is when the user is diagnosed with Marijuana (Cannabis) Use Disorder. People who suffer from the illness tend to show signs of addiction that we outline towards the end of the article. What ultimately decides this diagnosis is how frequently you smoke (weekly or more), the dosage you take, and/or how long the effects of this dosage last.

FACTOR 2: The second factor is what age you started smoking. Those who start smoking weed before their eighteenth birthday are at risk of harming two key developing stages of the brain. The first is known as synaptic pruning, the deletion of old neuron connections. The second is the growth of white matter, a transmission signal.

When these two factors are combined, there’s a likely chance certain mental disorders can develop. Truly, it all depends on the individual. Some may be more prone to depression while their smoking buddies might have higher risks of developing schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia

So, how is smoking weed related to psychotic states and, ultimately, schizophrenia?

Research has indicated that using cannabis at an early age for a frequent amount of time can be part of the cause of psychosis. This means cannabis-triggered mental states can interact with other psychoses such as a history of childhood abuse or genetically adopted psychosis. Due to the fact that there are other determiners at play here besides marijuana, it isn’t entirely certain how smoking weed is associated with previously devised psychoses.

Still, the fact remains that cannabis has a strong connection with developing or furthering a psychosis.

Both conditions create similar symptoms in the brain. These include:

• Impaired memory.
• Impaired cognition.
• Impaired processing of external stimuli.

As these symptoms merge, the affected individual experiences problems in learning and remembering. And though it’s not as likely, they can also encounter hallucinations and mislead thinking. Symptoms of psychosis can also increase if an individual is experiencing them without cannabis, then decides to start smoking.

Depending on the dosage or frequency of a weed smoker, schizophrenia can emerge. In fact, those who use daily are double at risk of the mental disorder in comparison to those who don’t. Even those who had only spent a period of their life smoking marijuana have retained a 40% more likely chance of developing schizophrenia in comparison to those who never tried it.

That said, not everyone who smokes pot is prone to a psychosis. As mentioned earlier, marijuana’s effects on individuals vary from person to person. Therefore, though someone might not be at risk of developing schizophrenia, there are other mental illnesses that can come about.

Depression And Anxiety

In comparison to schizophrenia, this topic is a bit trickier as there are many smokers out there who’ll advocate that cannabis has helped them in their battles with depression and anxiety. Yet, at the same time, there will also be those who claim marijuana has only made these mental illnesses worse.

In a study by Cambridge University, it was discovered that people who smoke daily were placed at modest risk of developing depression. It should be noted that this risk isn’t necessarily caused by cannabis itself. Rather, it depends on how the user goes about their smoking habit.

For example, there are some people whose lives will be highly affected. These people will make bad decisions that correlate with their marijuana habit such as dropping out of school or going unemployed. It’s the connection between poor life choices and weed that can prompt depression.

Likewise, anxiety is a difficult subject as not everyone feels the same way. Some will try to assure you that cannabis helps them relax and relieves much of their anxiety…while others assert they feel an overwhelming anxiety or paranoia when they get stoned.

BMC Psychiatry assembled 31 different researches to look into the matter. Their conclusion was that marijuana caused little risk for developing anxiety. However, the researchers weren’t denying that cannabis could cause anxiety when the user’s intoxicated. There problem was simply a lack of evidence.

Pre-Existing Conditions

The studies mentioned above inform us that cannabis doesn’t seem to inflict depression or anxiety as it can impose schizophrenia. But they don’t advise us on whether marijuana does harm to people already suffering from mental health issues.

With a collection of data between the years of 2001 to 2002 and 2004 to 2005, a study was made looking into this matter. The research found that there are a variety of factors which play into how a person suffering from mental health will react to THC. These include:

1. Demographic status.
2. Living environment.
3. Family genetics.

When Should Weed Use Become A Concern?

When comparing substances, cannabis isn’t necessarily the most addictive or threatening. That’s not to say people can’t develop an unhealthy dependence. Rather, if someone were to give weed a try, they’re not as likely to fall into an life-altering habit as with other drugs.

Still, addictions will arise with consistent use. And there comes a point in every chronic smokers life when marijuana is an issue. Usually, when it begins to interfere with their personal, social, and professional lives.

In order to know whether a loved one’s or your own smoking habit is a problem, consider the following:

• Have you ever felt a strong craving or urge to get high?
• Have you ever felt a desire to quit, but couldn’t successfully do so?
• Have you been smoking for a longer amount of time than you originally intended?
• Has smoking weed affected your performance at work, school, or home?
• Do you use marijuana in physically threatening circumstances (i.e. driving)?
• Have you built up a tolerance to its effects and need more in order to feel high?
• Do you cease to involve yourself in activities you enjoyed before trying cannabis?
• Has it caused problems with your relationships (spouse, family, friends, boss, etc.)?
• Have you ever not used for a period of time and felt withdrawal symptoms?
• Have you continued to smoke weed when you’re aware of negative physical and mental health problems that have arised?

If you or your loved one has experienced two or more of the above signs, then it’s likely a Marijuana (Cannabis) Use Disorder is present. This is when your smoking habit has become an issue in your life and an addiction has developed. The main indicators of any addiction include three main characteristics:

1. Loss of control related to drug use. Smoking more weed, more frequently than planned.
2. Cravings, obsession, and compulsion to use.
3. Being unable to stop on your own, despite negative consequences to home, health, work, or social life.

NOTE HERE: In order to be certain of how you or a loved one has been affected by cannabis use, visit a licensed clinical psychologist, addiction doctor, psychiatrist, or clinical social worker for a proper diagnosis. The following information is intended for research purposes.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that marijuana can be harmful to your mental health, depending on who you are as an individual. Though not everyone who smokes will develop or heighten a mental disorder, the chance is there and shouldn’t be ignored.

Furthermore, people with no history in mental health can still develop a Marijuana (Cannabis) Use Disorder. Weed is addictive and has similar dependent qualities as other substances.

You might be wondering how marijuana is affecting you personally. As already mentioned, the drug works differently within everyone. The research doesn’t give us too many indicates as to how it generally affects an individual’s mental health.

Therefore, you’ll want to speak to either a psychiatrist, counselor, or doctor on the matter. With their advice, you’ll develop a better understanding as to whether the substance is harming you and what next steps you can take.

View the original article at addictionblog.org

5 Tips For an Unplugged Summer: Stress-free, Screen Free, Holidays

Struggling to keep the kids (and yourself) off screens already when the summer holidays have only just got going? We’re old hands at keeping everyone happy and busy offline so avail yourself of our top tips and sit back and watch peace and harmony descend on your home this summer:

#1 Agree your unplugged summer ground rules

Talk as a family about what the rules should be around screens over the holidays. Just don’t be surprised when the kids want to set rules for parents too. Checking email after work, staying on social media for longer than you intended, if you all agree the rules together you have to all stick to them. It’ll be motivating for kids to see you joining in and they’ll appreciate a bit of your undivided attention.

#2 Plan activities that can’t be done with a screen

Trip wiring, abseiling, rock climbing, even a spot of tree climbing  – if you plan or suggest enough things that just can’t be done with a screen in the hand (and are challenging and exciting to do) you’ll be surprised how keen kids are to put their phones and tablets down and join in. The beauty of this is that you’re not actually asking them to quit their screens for an unplugged summer activity, they’ll work it out for themselves.

#3 Create an analogue challenge day

Make the whole business of being off-screens into a game by planning a digital detox day out where you all leave screens behind and have to manage without them. From doing without maps and GPS to not being able to check train times and bus timetables, think in advance about what might be the most challenging aspect of your day and enjoy watching all your skills of navigation and resourcefulness come flooding back. To gamify the experience further dole out points – and create a leader board – for the family member with the most analogue ingenuity in any of the situations you find yourself in.

#4 Seek out wi-fi black spots

You probably already know where these are in your local area because your kids have undoubtedly complained about them. If you’re going further afield some hotels and holidays now even promote the specific digital detox aspects of their  location (ie rubbish wi-fi). They may be few and far between but seek out those places which really do struggle to provide a wi-fi signal, no teenager is going to want to waste their precious data package unnecessarily so you’ll see them automatically cutting back on their screen time and finding other things to do.

#5 Find like-minded families

Spending more time offline is never going to work if you’re spending a lot of time with a family that’s glued to their screens. Find some friends and family who agree with you that an unplugged summer is going to be a lot more fun than one glued to smartphones and social media and arrange to spend more time with them. It’s a real bonus if you can find a family who loves playing retro board games or maybe has a liking for bat and ball games in the garden or on the beach. Who knows, some of it may rub off on your kids permanently?

For more tips and tricks to keep the whole family happy off screens, our new book Stop Staring at Screens is out in the US and UK on 6th September. Pick up a copy here.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

Your Thoughts Are Not Your Friends

You are not in charge of the thoughts that arise in your mind. Otherwise you would choose to be happy all the time – or to remain unruffled in every moment.

If you’re not sure about whether you are in control of your thoughts, try the following three minute experiment. All you need is a sheet of paper, a pen and the stopwatch on your smartphone.

Now start your stopwatch and scribble down every separate thought – however fleeting or insignificant – that occurs to you during the next 180 seconds. Then stop and cast your eye over ‘Exhibit A’. You may or may not be surprised by the volume of thoughts that have just streamed through your mind. And by the instances of repetition.

You now have practical evidence that a ‘thought tap’ is permanently open in your mind, producing a constant dribble of material. A lot of it is trivia. A lot of it is nonsensical. A lot of it is negative. Some if it is loving. Some of it makes you feel happy. Some of it is harmless. Some of it makes you bristle with anger, jealousy or insecurity.

I don’t know where these thoughts come from and that doesn’t really bother me. What’s more important is to see that attempting to attend to every one of these thoughts is madness. Because to do so would be to commit myself to a life of virtual slavery. It would be rather like spending the rest of my life trying to tidy up the floor of the Amazonian rainforest by picking up every twig, leaf, seed pod or vine that fell to earth.

I prefer instead to think of my mind as resembling a weather system. I know that I don’t choose the weather. And I know it doesn’t give a hoot about my preferences. Sometimes it’s sunny, sometimes it’s raining. Sometimes there’s a thunderstorm. And I can rage against the rainclouds as much as I like, but I can never ‘fix’ them.

Even if I get onto Twitter and express my dislike for the particularly menacing raincloud that has parked itself above my home I will not alter the outcome. The raincloud will pass in its own good time. So I prefer to ignore the rainclouds (as far as I can) and get on with what needs to be done. More weather will be on the way, because we are never ‘weather free’.

You don’t choose your thoughts either. If you wish you can rage against your thoughts all day long, but you can never ‘fix’ them. So why not leave them to their own devices and get on with what needs to be done (your cat, dog, child, friend, mother, partner or work colleague probably needs you)?

Like rainclouds your thoughts will eventually pass, unless you obsess about them and let them take over your life. More thoughts will be on the way, because we are never ‘thought free’.

Given that our minds are already besieged by thoughts we probably don’t need any more material. We can choose to partially release ourselves from ‘slavery’ by taking regular breaks from texts, emails and social media and practising mindfulness. Or we can choose to open the proverbial floodgates and allow the floor of the Amazonian rainforest to become even more cluttered.

The weather is not your friend and neither are your thoughts. It’s your call.

 

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

The Curse of Comparison Culture

Have you ever scrolled through Facebook or Instagram and suddenly felt that lurch in the pit of your stomach when you spot your friend or colleague or cousin looking really thin? Or maybe really happy? Maybe it feels like their kids are never crying or perhaps they are always laughing with their partner, smiling into each other’s eyes? Or maybe they are on holiday – again? Or maybe they are wearing that dress or shoes you know you could never afford. Why are they always having so much fun?

Social media has, in some ways, given us a window into one another’s lives. You can see your boss at home or on the beach. But of course, the reality is that everyone goes to town on their own window dressing. No one ever actually posts the crying baby or the tummy rolls or the screaming matches. They carefully curate a set of images to convince the world – if not themselves – life is great.

Yet even rationally knowing that, the lurch in the pit of my stomach stops me in my tracks. I quit Instagram because it just made be want to the thinner/blonder/on a beach but every now and then I find myself logging in and lurking. I get my fix of others people’s “lives” and like junk food, I devour it in the moment and then feel plagued with guilt after. Because it doesn’t make me feel good about myself. Fixating on the lives of others only serves for you to undermine your own. My reflection in the mirror simply becomes a list of negatives: I’m not that skinny; I don’t have a tan; my legs aren’t that long.

I did recently stumble across a bit of anecdote though, something that tips the balance and makes me remember what is good about my life. I’ve just came back from two weeks road tripping through Nevada and Utah. It was magical and I took lots of pictures on my iPhone. So now, instead of scrolling through other peoples’ perfect lives, every now and then I look at my own pictures, my own life and think, wow, what an adventure. After all, if we’re too busy looking at others, we might miss the amazing things that are happening around us.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

How to Help Teens Embrace Mindfulness

The Girl Guides recently hit the headlines for announcing the largest shake-up in its 110-year history. Among the 100 new badges and 700 new activities announced to form part of the new programme, a ‘Be Well’ section offers the chance to work towards badges in mindfulness and self-care. Around 50,000 girls were involved in shaping the new badges and activities.

This movement highlights both a shift towards better awareness of the importance of self-care by young people themselves and the promotion of positive mental health by those around them. Digital mental health has been at the forefront of this conversation. The Good Childhood Report 2017 found that moderate use of social media was associated with higher levels of wellbeing. However, the same report also recorded strong links between excessive social media use (over four hours per day) and low wellbeing. Quoted in The Guardian, Sarah Brennan, chief executive of the charity Young Minds, highlights, “the rise of social media means they need to always be available, they may seek reassurance in the form of likes and shares, and they are faced with constant images of ‘perfect’ bodies or ‘perfect’ lives, making it hard not to compare themselves to others.”

As adults turn to mindfulness to find better balance in the digital world and combat stress, we discuss how this practice could too help teenagers as they navigate some of the most challenging years of their lives under increasing digital pressure.

How to Help Teens Embrace Mindfulness in 3 Steps

1. Explain How Mindfulness Can Help Them

When considering how to go about getting your child off their phone, lamenting how much time they spend online is probably going to backfire. To prove why it’s a good idea to have some tech downtime, it’s key to outline how mindfulness can help your teen. For example, studies have shown how mindfulness practice can reduce the symptoms of stress, depression and anxiety. Explain how acknowledging negative thoughts without judgement allows you to identify that they are not always true reflections of reality. You can also make mindfulness very relevant to the current chapter of their lives, their education. Other studies claim that students who meditate before tests and exams perform better than those who do not.

2. Make Mindfulness Normal

After explaining the benefits of embracing mindfulness, you need to practise what you preach. Take breaks from your own devices through digital detox and use meditation and mindful practices to deal with stressful situations. If you’re not doing it, why should they?

3. Acknowledge That Mindfulness Isn’t Just About Meditation

While mindfulness is commonly practiced through meditation, there are other ways to feel present which may be more appealing to teens. A great example is the recent trend for bullet journals. The bullet journal system is a way to rapidly record events, tasks and feelings in a dotted notebook. It was created by Ryder Carroll, a digital product designer from New York. Here, you’ll notice a trend with Silicon Valley’s elite. Some of the most tech-minded folk are the ones that feel the need to disconnect the most. Carroll has dubbed his system “the analogue system for the digital age.”

Since he unveiled the concept in 2013, a community has blossomed, and many young people have run with the idea. On Instagram, #bulletjournal or #bujo will surface hundreds of images of impeccably neat and beautifully decorated dotted pages. It’s an offline hobby which allows users to enjoy creativity while being more aware of their day-to-day feelings. For teens, it could be a great way to express creativity while still taking part in a seemingly ‘trendy’ activity.

Through explaining mindfulness, see your teens discover a better balance with their digital devices and improved digital mental health.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

A Brief History of Female Political Figures Being Abused Online

Twitter is an excellent real time service for finding out what is happening right now. Mainly because of this, it has evolved into something of a social network for news, with journalists using it as an important source for finding out what public figures have to say.

But alongside this has come an ugly underbelly. Anyone can set up an account on Twitter anonymously, and with that comes the world of trolling. Look at the comments beneath almost any politician’s or national newspaper’s account, and you’ll almost certainly find something unsavoury, perhaps hate filled or even with threats of violence. Facebook also often suffers from the same problem.

Female political figures in Britain have suffered greatly from this trolling. While Twitter have assisted police in finding the people behind the threats, they seem powerless to stop such people making the threats in the first place. There are many clear examples where abuse has been reported on by national newspapers, and people have often targeted certain figures several times in separate incidents.

Taking time to list all such occurences in detail could easily run into an article of book sized lengths. Here are a few examples of recent happenings to illustrate the problem. It is, unfortunately, a much bigger problem that some of these better known incidents alone.

Stella Creasy vs. Wonga

One female politician who has been on the receiving ends of extreme abuse is Labour MP for Walthamstow Stella Creasy. While abuse likely started before 2012, it was in November that year that the first report of a Twitter troll targeting Creasy was reported.

Her vocal opposition to payday loan website Wonga led to a public attack, and a Guardian investigation found that an employee of the firm was using anonymous Twitter accounts to do so. One account called Creasy ‘mental’, ‘nuts’ and a ‘self-serving egomaniac’. While they were using a company computer, the troll was operating without Wonga’s knowledge and their identity was not revealed.

New Banknote Debate Leads to Abuse

In April 2013, the Bank of England announced that in 2016 it would release a new £5 note; Winston Churchill would replace prison reformer Elizabeth Fry on the back of the money.

This would mean no women featured on any of Britain’s bank notes. Disappointed at the decision, journalist Caroline Criado-Perez began a campaign for the Bank of England to reconsider. Her campaign gained support from 35,000 petitioners and enough money for a legal challenge should the campaign be ignored.

Stella Creasy also leant her support, organising a letter of 46 MPs to the Prime Minister. The Bank of England were open to the discussion, and in July they announced that they would feature Jane Austen on the back of new £10 note, which was due to come out in 2017.

The campaign can be seen as a small victory for equality, but it’s big deal in some ways – legal tender is itself a form of media viewed by millions of people every day, and that a single English woman’s achievements wouldn’t be on one of the five banknotes is quite an oversight. There’s nothing particularly radical, or militantly feminist about this idea.

‘It’s All Just Satire’

But people on Twitter did not take lightly to the campaign. While trolling was building throughout July, it reached its feverish height after the Bank of England had made their announcement. Both Criado-Perez and Creasy were then subjected to rape threats, at rates of nearly fifty such tweets an hour, with the former tweeting,  “I actually can’t keep up with the screen-capping & reporting — rape threats thick and fast now. If anyone wants to report the tweets to Twitter.”

One of the tweets sent by troll Peter Nunn, read, “You better watch your back, I’m going to rape your arse at 8pm and put the video all over.” Nunn was later jailed for 18 weeks for a ‘campaign of hatred’ directed against Criado-Perez and Creasy, which took place from multiple accounts, even continuing when one was suspended.

In the dock, he said about his rape threats to Criado-Perez, ‘I realise now that rape threats aren’t a compliment. I said you could take it as a compliment you are beautiful.’ Alongside this warped thinking was the excuse common amongst Internet conspiracy theorists, fake news publishers and trolls alike – it was all, of course, just satire.

De-selection Threats After Syria Vote

And all of this in 2012 and 2013: Twitter was not yet even ten years old, but it clearly had a serious attitude problem. But for every Peter Nunn locked away, there were thousands who went unreported, and yet countless more who Twitter and even the police would give up on. The hordes of trolls across social media weren’t done with Stella Creasy yet either.

Even while deciding whether to go against Jeremy Corbyn and vote with the government on supporting military action in Syria in December 2015, she was subject to more online abuse. On the evening of the vote, she posted to Facebook:

‘its not really possible for me to keep up with the messages am getting on social media at present, but have just dipped in and seen some discussion about the protest march on Tuesday and also the abusive messages I have been receiving…’

She later told Channel 4 News that after the vote, she received ‘12,500 tweets within a couple of days – 2,500 in the first day alone.’ She also spotted a comment left by Asim Mahmood, who wrote,

‘In my opinion any Labour MP who supports the killing of innocents in this way should automatically go through a trigger ballot for reselection. Anyone want to word a motion to that effect?’

She responded: ‘Will continue to listen and reflect but want to be clear that one thing I will not do is be bullied by a sitting Walthamstow Labour councillor with the threat of deselection if I don’t do what he wants.’ This wasn’t just anonymous trolling, but pressure from councillors in her own party and constituency. In the event of the vote, when Creasy did vote in favour of military action, media reports of potential de-selection ran rampant.

The Anxiety from Receiving Online Abuse

Stella Creasy is quite a special case in UK politics for the number of separate incidents where she has been targeted by trolls.

But, unfortunately, she is far from alone as trolls persistently target women involved with politics. Such online trolling lurches from a deep sexism, and an anger that any woman can be uninhibited and strong in stating an opinion. But even if vile physical threats can be dismissed, it is still clear that they will cause harm – this does not have to be physical.

When public women receive thousands of such threats, this leads to deepening anxieties over how it could escalate. Creasy herself installed a panic button at her home, and she wrote in The Telegraph, ‘I can’t get the last year back or erase the inevitable personal impact of getting constant threats. Recently someone followed me from the tube to talk to me and I felt my heart in my mouth. Sadly and predictably this whole episode has made me more wary of strangers than I wish.’

Gina Miller vs. the British Government

A similar outcome lay in wait for Gina Miller, who challenged the authority of the British Government to invoke Article 50 and begin the nation’s formal withdrawal from the European Union.

In November 2016, the High Court of Justice ruled in favour of Miller’s challenge to make the invocation go before a parliamentary vote. In an article for The Mail on Sunday, Miller wrote ‘Yes we must have Brexit – but not by mob rule.’ Yet she had been on the receiving end of online mob attacks since coming to prominence for the challenge.

The typical complaints from Brexiteers remarked that the challenge was ‘undemocratic’ and that she was in it for her own interests as a hedge fund manager. But from there we depart into anonymous accusations of treason, and that Gina Miller should be hung, shot or gang-raped.

Viscount Jailed for Abuse

In January, Viscount Rhodri Colwyn Philips was arrested for three messages posted to Facebook between September and November. One read, ‘£5,000 for the first person to ‘accidentally’ run over this bloody troublesome first-generation immigrant.” He later added: ‘If this is what we should expect from immigrants, send them back to their stinking jungles.’

Philips demanded to know why others accused of abusing Ms Miller were not in court, which is a fair point, given the thousands of accounts aiming abuse. But a thousand wrongs make no right and he was jailed for 12 weeks in July. Like Peter Nunn before him, the Viscount said his comments were ‘satire’.

In August, it was reported that Miller was afraid to leave her home because of the threat of acid attacks. This is simply not a normal state of affairs, and like Creasy before her, these anxieties are clearly fuelled by online abuse.

Social Media Vitriol

The failure of social media to convey the nuances of meaning, through having no body language, tone of voice and even stripping the context of the person who said it, means a likely destination of online debate is fuming circular vitriol.

We can see from television shows like Question Time, or even Prime Minister’s Questions, that it is very difficult to get people from different sides of the political spectrum to come to any agreement, and in some cases makes a valid point at all. On social media, this becomes nigh on impossible – a slanging match of points made in the illusion of real time, where the reaction of the other side delivers greater exasperation every time it arrives.

But beyond this lack of healthy debate, there also remains a sickening underbelly of anonymous trolls – many of whom just seem to enjoy the act of being abusive. The solution here seems to be to make people who sign up to social networks more accountable through having clear identities. For instance, you’re less likely to be a troll with a verified profile picture.

But this has Internet libertarians up in arms, because they believe identity should be protected. Meanwhile, the networks will do anything in the name of growth – so the more accounts, the better. In its current guise, it has become ugly.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

How to unplug from your inbox

Unplugging from endless emails can feel like an impossible goal. Why? The average person now checks their inbox around 77 times per day. Phones and computers have become sources of anxiety rather than communication tools – especially where the workplace is concerned. At Time to Log Off, we believe that no-one should have to endure email overload, so here are five tips on how to unplug from your inbox and create some tech-life balance.

Resist the ping

The average person opens their emails within six seconds of arrival. Responding to that ping of an incoming email is addictive, it’s official. Blame dopamine a hormone produced by the brain that urges you, amongst other things, to search and explore. That notification ping switches your brain into ‘seeking’ mode, which triggers a release of feel-good dopamine. Break the loop, and learn how to unplug, by turning off your notifications – so you’re not tempted to immediately respond to that little ping for that dopamine hit.

Create a daily email routine

Research shows that it takes 25 minutes to get back into the zone of productivity after checking a single email. Instead of constantly checking your messages, and interrupting your concentration, set specific slots during the day to look at your inbox: when you first arrive at work, before lunch and late afternoon – or whatever times fit in with your particular role. Don’t let the tyranny of email ruin your productivity.

Ignore the messages that don’t matter

Email is one of the biggest time stealers. The average person spends around 28% of their working week managing emails. Research also shows that email overload is triggering stress, which isn’t surprising given that the average office worker receives around 121 messages a day. One quick way to learn how to unplug and reduce the time spent on emails is to ignore the people who don’t matter. Harsh as it sounds, don’t be drawn into digital discussions that you feel don’t involve or concern you. Your time is precious.

Clear up your subscriptions

Almost 50% of all messages received daily are spam meaning that they’re unsolicited or irrelevant. That’s a whopping number of stress-triggering, time-wasting emails landing in your inbox. Be ruthless. In your quest to learn how to unplug, regularly clear up your subscriptions to business-related newsletters from outside sources – and personal stuff especially online shopping sites. The quickest way to reduce the flow of unwanted messages is by going to the bottom of the email and clicking ‘unsubscribe’.

Set an email curfew

We all know that feeling, a work email drops into your inbox at 10 pm and you feel you should answer it. Don’t do it. Once you’ve left work, everyone has the right to free time away from any job-related worries. If your boss insists on emailing you at home reduce the timeframe that you’re available by 15 mins every week. So, the first week stop answering emails at 10.30 pm, the next week 10.15 pm and so on until you’re only available during your commute home. This free time matters, so much so that from 1st January 2017, French workers were given the right to disconnect from technology outside of employment hours.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

3 Tricks To Control Your Smartphone Bingeing

Our smartphones have become the object we seem to need the most. Indeed, our relationships with our phones is so intense that the term ‘nomophobia’ has been coined to explain the sense of phone separation anxiety. As early as 2008, 53% of respondents to a YouGov survey said they sensed higher stress levels if they had left their phone at home or it had run out of battery.

Meanwhile, a 2015 study led The Scotsman to conclude ‘Teens can’t live without smartphones or social media.’  Such surveys and studies are now fairly common – and we all know the feeling. If your phone runs out of battery, you’re likely to get some sensation of ‘Fear of Missing Out’ (FoMo) or another type of anxiety. After all, many of us use our phones for communication, directions and transport.

So we’re pretty much attached to our phones all the time. Applications like social media deliberately build in features to get us to go back for more, and we’re all now on average spending at least two hours a day with our devices – for young women, it’s nearly 90 hours a month.

You might be thinking you’re spending far too much time on your phone, and are considering having something of a digital detox. But given not having your phone is likely to make you anxious, and you might well be addicted. Indeed, phones and social media are designed to hook users in and change their habits. But how can we take steps to undo this? It’s actually a battle I’ve been through many times, so I’ve got a few tips to share. 

1. Change login and locations of apps

Let’s consider your smartphone access and app behaviour. If you’re anything like I have been at my worst, you likely whip your phone out at even the slightest hint of boredom. Almost any nook and cranny of time waiting – something as mundane as waiting for the kettle to boil – I’d whip my phone out and navigate straight to Facebook. Then Twitter… Then check the news… ad infinitum.

I was hooked in by the ease of unlocking my phone – a swipe or passcode confined to muscle memory – and my knowledge exactly where my apps were. Facebook – home screen, top left. If you want to cut down on phone use, then breaking such habits by altering them is a good method.

For instance, you change your phone passcode and then change the position of your apps. I actually went a bit further and just deleted all of my apps that I could access through a browser.

This meant I had to login via a new method, then have to use a basic browser to access apps. And this made me think about what I was doing. Logging in had become more difficult, while the swishy usability of my apps was gone – replaced by a clunky experience.

2. Turn off ALL notifications to stop smartphone bingeing

When I hear someone’s phone notifications during working hours, I think to myself – how can that person really be focused and productive? As snooty as it may sound, there is just no possible way that everyone can respond or care to all of the notifications that are sent to them. Most of them are utterly meaningless.

For instance, let’s say you install the Gmail app on your phone for non-work email. If you’re anything like me, your personal email will be filled with all manner of junk marketing communication (and even after all those pointless GDPR emails). So if you don’t turn off your personal email notifications, you will be bombarded throughout the day with ringing and vibrating, and if you unlock your screen you’ll see a load of icons at the top. All of this is designed to make you check them.

Even work communication suffers the same fate. People like to think Slack is more productive than email, but it’s not really if you get literally every message buzzing you and distracting you.

My rule is notifications off. I just don’t see them as remotely useful. If something is urgent, people can come to your desk or call you up.

3. Abandon emotional online ‘debate’

This is relevant for both social media and email. Any online conversation that has a hint of emotion in it you should almost certainly drop and seek to resolve in person. Online debate simply does not contain the nuances of conversation necessary to help people interpret each other.

It is useful for connecting and arranging things:

1. ‘Hi, let’s meet up here’
2. ‘Don’t like that place so much, what about this place?’
3. ‘Okay.’

But online conversation is awful awful at communicating when it’s more emotionally charged:

1. ‘I think you’ve been rude to me’
2. ‘How so?’
3. ‘What?! How can you not be aware of this!’
4. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’
5. ‘OMG!!!’

This kind of escalation is time wasting, anxiety inducing and frighteningly common.

Let’s take a slightly more concrete example: After hours a colleague at work sends you an email criticising your department for not assisting them on a project. You interpret the email as well out of line, mainly because many of the points made suggest an ignorance of how your department operates. You could:

1. Spend the next hour fuming at this communication, stewing on it until you write a counter to each of these points in detail, thereby wasting a good proportion of your evening.
2. Wait until the morning, go over to their desk and quickly talk through the points – solving it quickly because you are able to converse and compromise.
3. Do nothing – suck it up and don’t respond.

1 is the online method, likely to essentially pour molten lava on the already flaming issue that simply seems so important because it is in writing. If you send your angry reply, you’re likely to be checking your phone all night to see if there’s a counter. Number 3 could be interpreted as quite rude, but people do it all the time. 2 is the most diplomatic approach and the easiest method of resolution.

The same principles apply to social media. One person makes a contentious statement, then someone else gives a contentious counter. Both of these people are now locked in an online duel of waiting for another statement, which they’ll more than likely not really take in and just counter back. Addictive? You bet. You’ll be refreshing your phone until the next reply comes. How about just abandoning the debate altogether? Just think to yourself – this really doesn’t matter. The sun will still rise in the morning.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

The best thing about dating apps is that you can delete them

I always think that using dating apps is a bit like drinking alcohol. If you’re feeling good, in and of yourself, then scrolling through strangers and starting conversations can be fun and exciting, making you feel dizzy and giddy, like after that first glass of fizz on Friday night. If, however, you’re not feeling so good, your self-esteem has taken a bashing, you’ve had one too many dickpics come your way, then it’s best to avoid it. In the same way that an early night can be much better for you than half a bottle of red, if you’re not quite feeling yourself sometimes it is best to duck out.

My experience of online dating (always Happn, occasionally Bumble, never Tinder or Guardian Soulmates) changed dramatically when I realised this, and namely, that I didn’t have to date all the time just because I was single. When I realised that I could easily delete the app for a few weeks, wipe away all the stress and strains of trying to find someone I fancied or fixing a date in a particularly soulless bar in Liverpool street, I began to feel more in control of the situation, as opposed to the other way round. Before I started taking regular breaks, I’d find myself opening dating apps and mindlessly scrolling though, like I do with Twitter or my Apple News feed – yet another reason to look at my phone. The thing is, these were humans, prospective dates, potential partners. But the addictive action of scrolling, and the thoughtlessness of opening and closing dating apps, meant I reduced those individuals to just images, as if scrolling through the ASOS sale while waiting for the bus.

With the breaks came a renewed focus on just me and what makes me happy. Brunch with friends, walks on the coast with my mum, talks, lectures and exhibitions followed by a glass of wine someone on the river. I’d read and watch the things I really wanted to. I’d only spend time with people I really wanted to. And crucially, when I’d decided to download dating apps again, the Friday fizz feeling returned. I wasn’t scrolling like a zombie, I had fresh eyes and the experience was instantly more positive. This was an active choice that I felt good about, in the right place for – not a bad habit that left me feeling hollow and alone.

I came off Happn (and drinking) for the whole of January a couple of years ago. When I logged back on, I felt calmer, happier, excited by the prospect of who I might meet, instead of bitter and exhausted as I had done by the end of the previous December. I opened the app to find a message from a handsome man called Ed. Reader, I moved in with him, and here we are two and half years later.

It’s easy to think we need technology for our lives to work most efficiently. But actually, sometimes what we really need is a break.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

How I Won My Own Battle With Tech Burnout

Throughout my career, I’ve always worked with technology. Specifically, I’ve had a very close relationship with social media and publishing – essentially a career with a very high likelihood of experiencing information overload. I never used to think it was that bad – I used to read books very easily, be able to concentrate, and generally not get distracted. But advanced phone handsets, combined with a new form of mobile-only social media and always-on email changed all that.

At the end of 2017, I left full time employment for freelancing and to see what that might hold. I’d done it before in 2013, but this time around with a much closer relationship with technology, and already being fairly shot from the last couple of months of work, I struggled to get the concentration necessary to give it a proper go. I procrastinated in the mornings, meaning working days would have to drag into the evening. In my working day, my attention flitted between serious work and social media. I couldn’t read a book, and even more bizarrely, I even began to struggle with listening to audiobooks. My sleeping was not in good shape either.

It was difficult to get anything entrepreneurial off the ground, and after several somewhat circular conversations and incidents of me staring at a computer screen without action, I knew something was wrong. I was burnt out. I told various clients of the fact that I was experiencing tech burnout and decided it was time for action. I couldn’t pretend I could continue at a rate of 50% productivity or worse. So towards the end of March I decided to make a plan to deal with my tech burnout and get back on track.

I took myself away

I could have easily gone to a beach for a week. While that might have helped, I’m not sure holidaying solo would have made me beat my constant phone reaching so I did something out of my comfort zone – I volunteered for a charity in France. There were several benefits to this: I met some new people and there was a sense of camaraderie and togetherness that I’d been missing in my freelance life.

I also had no reason to look at a screen for any real length of time, as I was cut off from any potential of actually meeting who I might have been talking to. I got to sit on the ferry for a few hours and didn’t think about work or technology for three or so days, so experienced something of a digital detox. Another aspect was the contrast between a physical job (I worked in a kitchen and woodyard) against staring at a computer screen all day. This meant I went to bed physically tired and slept well, without my mind whirring or other distractions.

I deleted some apps

Being in France for some reason gave me a ruthless streak when it came to technology. I was away, in a different place and mindset, and I thought to myself, why do I need to be in this Whatsapp group, where we always chat but never really meet? Did I really need an Instagram account? I thought I didn’t and eliminating these things would aid my attention span. So I just did it, didn’t regret it, and overall I think it did help. I got a few messages from friends in the group asking why I’d left. No big deal, I replied, just want a bit of a break from Whatsapp.

I also installed the Facebook News Eradicator on all of my computers, and installed a plugin called Block Site. Top of my list to be banned? Without a doubt for freelancers it’s LinkedIn. In all my experience of social media, I don’t think there’s a bigger time waster than LinkedIn’s feed of meaningless work based fables, success parade of people getting new jobs and largely hot air points of view. It gives the illusion of being useful to freelancers for networking, but in fact is just largely a time sap. I suggest avoiding it in the working day.

I stopped drinking for a bit

I’ve always liked a drink, but if you hit it too hard at the weekends (or indeed in the week) your body and mind is going to be in a constant game of catch-up throughout the week and you’re only really going to sharpen up by Wednesday. Even having a couple of glasses a night will wear you down if you do it regularly enough. Completely dropping alcohol for two weeks was a very fruitful exercise.

I started sleeping far better than previously, and I felt a lot sharper and productive. I couldn’t necessarily keep it up after this short window – and I did start getting a little bored sometimes – but it was worthwhile in getting me out of a rut. If you want to go a bit further than a couple of weeks, then I recommend taking a look at One Year, No Beer.

I did something to overcome tech burnout that gave me a goal

In 2016 I’d done a half marathon, and it was agony. With some trepidation I decided to sign up to another one and train properly this time. I started in early April and had about eight weeks to build up, and incrementally I ran a bit further each week.

On the actual day, I beat my previous time by nearly twenty minutes and felt quite amazed at how far I’d come. I suppose the main thing was that I knew what being unprepared felt like, so I really went for it. Running in the Spring is really very pleasant. I looked forward to the longer runs on Tuesday evening and Saturday morning. A goal doesn’t have to be physical, of course, but it does need to be challenging. I enjoyed the challenge of running longer and longer distances and then beating my personal best.

I pursued creative endeavour

I hadn’t taken up art since school, and felt it was something of a lost talent, so I started doing drawing and painted a mural in my flat. I’d also taken a couple of digital art classes. There is no other activity I know of that stops time like painting. It makes me almost entirely forget about the outside world and feel entirely focused on what I’m doing. Granted, it didn’t help me recover from tech burnout on its own, because I didn’t do it for long enough, but I certainly thought it contributed.

I’m not sure any one of these pursuits on its own would have been enough to give me a full recovery from tech burnout. While they all happened at similar times, they didn’t all overlap. But my own experiences say that making these changes, all added up over a couple of months, brought me my concentration back.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com