Digital Detox — My goal for 2021 and beyond
No one reaches the end of their life and says ‘I wish, I had spent more time on my phone’
I had watched a documentary-drama titled ‘The Social Dilemma’ a couple of months ago due to all the hype and multiple posts about it popping up on my Twitter feed. To me, it reiterated the common phrase doing the rounds these days about data being the new oil.
The documentary is definitely worth watching but overdramatizes the situation a little too. Despite that, the fact remains that our usage of digital media has increased humongously over the years. Large tech companies mining data and regularly tracking our activity online for their financial gains have only made it all the more scarier.
There are a number of options like privacy-focused browsers (brave browser), search engines (duckduckgo), VPN services etc available today to ensure that we stay safe online, at least to some extent. While all these help us get over one issue, the much graver problem of addiction to these digital media still remains.
My Experiment
- I decided to track the number of hours I was spending on my smartphone on a daily basis for a few weeks.
- Used a number of apps like YourHour, StayFree, AppBlock, Space, Block Apps, Forest… to track my usage or block app usage beyond a limit. My main motive was to stay in control of my smartphone usage.
- Deleted apps like YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Inshorts etc which I was using a lot.
Result
- I noticed that despite uninstalling all the above apps I would just log in to these websites on the smartphone browser and start consuming the content. On occasions where I did block the smartphone browsers, I ended up switching over to my laptop. In short, my mind usually found ways to get past these apps.
- Some of the above apps that I mentioned above did not function properly when my phone was rebooted etc.
- I noticed that I was usually spending at least 2 hours each day on my smartphone.
- I normally used these apps when I wanted to relax. Sometimes I would plan to just watch youtube for a few min but would end up spending an hour. This also affected my sleep on a few occasions.
The Digital Detox App
- I have been using this app for a few weeks now (24-hour challenges with 20 min of emergency use). It has helped me to control my smartphone usage considerably. In fact, I have used my phone for less than an hour/day during this time.
- The app literally locks away the phone for the stipulated amount of time as per the challenge and only allows emergency usage of up to 40 min. By granting it the appropriate permissions, the app really does the job and helps one to detox.
- Apps that have been whitelisted (Phone, Contacts… in my case) can be used without any restriction.
- There are only two ways to quit a challenge,
- Pay money (min 1$)
- If you have assigned a mentor in the app, key in a quit code which can only be generated by them
- My overall experience with the app has been amazing. I would really like to thank the developers of this app for creating such a great product.
- There are still a few quirks, glitches with the app, but this has definitely been a great start from the team behind this.
The goal for 2021 and beyond
- The plan now is to continue with this 24-hour challenge streak on a daily basis.
- I would love to be able to control my smartphone usage without having to rely on any app etc in the near future i.e I want to be in total control of my mind and improve my mental strength.
- I have already seen signs of betterment with this detox (my sleep has improved, I have more time to work on other things etc).
- Someone said that it takes 21 days to form a habit. I encourage you - the reader to go on and make digital detox your habit for the years to come.
Further Reading
- The Digital Detox App On Google Play Store
- Benefits of Digital Detox
- Some popular quotes from — The Social Dilemma
