How I Treat My Midlife Love-Hate Relationship With Technology
Simple strategies to tame the Digital Age and live a slower, less distracted life
Do you have moments of missing your “growing up” years?
These are the times when:
One phone in the kitchen and one television in the entire house was considered a luxury.
Games were on an outdoor field or court, while inside games were on a board or with a deck of cards.
Bedtime meant lying down in nothing but silence and darkness.
I miss these times. I miss the simplicity. The quiet. The slow, uncomplicated way life rolled out every day.
No electronics in my pocket. No bluelight keeping me awake. No constantly grabbing my phone for quick information or for a quick fix to my boredom.
A couple of years ago, I decided to rid my life of all the beeps and pings and dings that were interrupting my train of thought. My focus was shot, and my nerves were frazzled.
I felt like an exhausted, distracted version of Pavlov’s dog.
If you remember, Pavlov was a scientist who conditioned a dog to salivate every time it heard a bell. When the dog heard the bell, he salivated in anticipation of food.
Or in my case, when Michelle heard the bell, she grabbed her phone in anticipation of a dopamine hit.
Just like the dog.
This behavior (for both of us) is a conditioned response. I figured if I created this habit, I could change it.
Text notifications were driving me nuts. I turned off email and social media notifications a number of years ago, so they weren’t the problem. It was the incoming texts. *sigh*
Escaping my Pavlovian loop
To upgrade this behavior, I did two things:
I decided that texts weren’t urgent. Before, I thought they had to be answered quickly. I have no idea why I thought that, but I did. I now treat them like emails, checking them only a few times a day.
To retrain my brain from trying to answer texts immediately, I turned off the notifications. Pretty simple, right? On the contrary, I had more than a few withdrawal issues (ahem…). But after about a week or two, I discovered that silence is bliss.
This was my first experiment in calming down the proverbial “slings and arrows” of the digital age.
Since it was so successful, I decided to explore a few more options. Glean what you like from one or more of the tips below.
Delete social media from your phone
On December 30, 2024, I took social media off my phone and my life changed…
In such a good way.
As I mentioned in this post, I removed it so I could create a new, more beneficial habit.
As of this writing, it’s going well. I’m not grabbing my phone nearly as often, and I beam with pride when my weekly report says that I’m using my phone less this week than last week. *blush*
Use a watch
This change was surprisingly significant.
I realized I was picking up my phone to check the time then, next thing I knew, I wandered down the rabbit hole of apps and the Internet.
To stop this behavior, I bought an inexpensive little watch from Amazon. God bless it — It saves my time and my sanity on a regular basis.
Kick it old school with a pedometer
Today, it seems everyone has a clunky, oversized smart watch on their wrists. They use them to count steps, receive texts and more.
They even allow them to interrupt perfectly good conversations.
I am weary of losing eye contact when someone says, “Hang on” so they can glance at their watch. I just want to yell, “Are your texts more important than me?!”
Apparently, they are. *sniff*
So along with my old-fashioned watch, I got a battery-run pedometer.
That means it’s a stand-alone. It doesn’t need to sync to anything. You simply put it on in the morning and check it before you go to bed.
And for the record, I’m fully aware that I’m not one of cool kids anymore. (Not that I ever was.)
But these days, you can’t miss me. I’m the nerd with the pedometer clipped to the top of her high-waisted mom jeans.
Limit unsolicited links
I love my friends, and I’m happy when they have an “aha” moment from a video, podcast or blog post.
That’s because it’s those “aha” moments that can motivate and inspire us to get a plan, take an action and potentially change our lives forever.
That’s exciting, right?
But sometimes, in their enthusiasm, my friends feel the need to share.
That means my texts and inbox get filled to brim with random links. Friends tell me to “listen to this amazing episode” or “watch this incredible video.”
That’s nice, but I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to watch or listen or read any of it…
So I don’t.
That doesn’t mean it’s not good content. It doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the gesture.
All it means is that I don’t want to.
Personally, I would much rather be staring at the face of a friend over a cup of coffee than stare at a screen any longer than absolutely necessary.
I’ve asked my friends — as politely as possible — to stop sending me links I didn’t request. Most of them graciously stopped immediately.
I’m blessed to have these people in my life. They’re the ones who “get it.” They’re the ones who are willing to stop the madness at a moment’s notice simply because I asked. *warm, fuzzy feeling*
Your fun-sized action
If the pings and the dings and the buzzers are making you feel distracted and unsettled, maybe it's time for you to try your own experiment.
Note: This experiment is for notifications for your personal apps, emails and texts. If your work requires you to have notifications on, by all means, keep them on.
Start by turning off notifications for an app you don’t use much. See how it feels. See how you react. Watch your own behavior for a while.
Once you’re okay with the idea of not having those notifications, try it with another app, then another.
If you get to a point where I am — where all email, text and app notifications are turned off — there’s only one noise coming at you: the phone.
On the rare occasion that my phone rings, I love it when a friend surprises me with a spontaneous call.
And if caller ID pops up as “suspected spam,” I just decline it.
Now it’s your turn. Give one or all of these experiments a try, and let me know how it goes.
Until next time, peace, love and blessings to you and yours.
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