Do you think there is a health or happiness benefit to decreased personal device usage? Why or why not?
I’m starting to think that being away from screens as much as possible is good for you.
I have noticed that when I do things (work or fun) for long periods of time without looking at my phone, I feel better. I’ve also noticed that the more of my work I do pen and paper, the better I feel as well (not to mentioned better content retention, but that’s not the point of this post. Same with leaving my phone behind in social situations, I feel more engaged.
Please discuss (the discussion scope includes all walks of life not just work) and share your thoughts on this topic.
Yes
100%. There's a reason why people will pay thousands of dollars for a complete retreat to disconnect. Humans are not designed to be mainlined with stimuli and mass bombardment of information the way we are these days with modern media and these hellish devices we keep in our pockets. It completely defies anything else you can observe in nature and distorts millions of years of evolutionary adaptation around dopamine-seeking behavior. There's hundreds of studies that go on to confirm as much by various metrics. Anecdotally, the best I ever feel aside from blowing a load is when I get several days to completely disconnect.
Doesn't surprise me. In this instant self gratification society, especially my generation of zoomers, everything in life is meant to give you pleasure and lose your focus. Porn, social media, TV, weed etc. It all releases high amounts of dopamine which depletes your reserves of this "feel good" chemical. I've heard people who do social media cleanses or phone cleanses for a week to get away from it. Probably also why some people are into camping because you lose signal for your phone, rendering it useless.
I've been trying hard, deleting social media off my phone and youtube, but I still find myself using social media before I go to bed and when I wake up in the morning on the browser, but overall usage has gone down. Going on runs without my phone, taking a Saturday off. I started noticing even my parents using their devices a ton, makes me sad.
I've been thinking about buying a dumb phone and using it for a month or two, might get weird looks, but who cares.
One of my professors in university didn't have a phone- at all. He used a laptop, etc.., but no phone. Never had one. We heard gasps in the room when he said that. What would happen if something happened to him, how would he tell his family? He wouldn't, they would find out one way or another. Was very interesting, never even considered that as a possibility, since we've grown up with phones.
Yes. I've never been a big social media user anyway, but I've also started taking the next step by not even consuming the content like I used to and am already happier. I didn't realize it, but even consuming social media without posting had a negative effect on my mental health. I thought that I was kind of immune from the negative aspects of it by not posting and therefore not worrying about "likes", "followers", etc. But it's only after I greatly stopped using it, even to check DMs, etc., that I realized it was dragging me down because I was constantly comparing my mundane life to peoples' highlight reels and making myself feel like shit as a result. I've also stopped participating in as many group chats where people just post random nonsense/flexes because I realized that wasn't doing me any good either. If my friends want to talk to me, they can text me or we can create a group to make plans. But I actually don't think texting just for the sake of making "conversation" is necessarily good either.
I haven't quite made that leap yet, but I'm resolved to now delete all social media from my phone and use it the way we did in the days of yore - from a desktop. I think that's a decent balance between deleting it completely and losing a way to stay in touch with people, and mindless scrolling whenever I'm bored just to pass time.
1000%. I deleted Instagram and Snapchat last month, and it's wild how much happier I am. Like I noticed a complete shift within a week.
WHY THE PAST 10 YEARS OF AMERICAN LIFE HAVE BEEN UNIQUELY STUPID
It’s not just a phase.
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