The Silencing
Tech has become too loud and our brains struggle to keep up in a world of ever-increasing over-information and connectivity. Learning to tame and selectively silencing our technology is how we regain our lost focus and attention span.
Through years of technological innovation, rapidly evolving connectivity and information that is now more readily available than ever before, we have exceeded what was once considered the limit of networking. It has become evident, however, that while this evolution steadily occurs at breakneck speed, the same is not true for the evolution and adaptation of the means thereby we perceive such technologies; namely, our brains.
Our Capacity
It is a long-standing fact that our brains are impressive, but ultimately limited in terms of their information-processing capacity. It baffles me how we still see a steady stream of articles and how-to videos, explaining “optimal” productivity workflows and multitasking tips, which often carry a misguided implication that our limited capacity can somehow be ‘life-hacked’ with “X” app or “Y” tip. Granted, planning and organising are, undoubtedly, essential elements of a healthy workflow, but they are not meant to augment our intellectual capacity, rather than work around its limitations.
My understanding is that our limited intellectual capacity is not an aspect to be ashamed of or one that needs to be augmented. Instead of attempting to augment our capacity, we’d rather accept and work around it.
The Source
Modern-day overstimulation is not exclusively attributable to technology, but I find that most instances of our day-to-day overstimulation either derive directly from it, or are enabled/amplified through it. As such, technology will be the main item in the following discussion.
The aforesaid technological leaps have brought an abundance of information to our brain’s doorstep and nowadays, it is rare to go more than five minutes (even, dare I say, a single minute) without receiving some sort of information stimulus. This shift in our ambience is not completely our fault. Besides the vague truth of “technological innovation”, this new reality is more specifically a result of Big Tech’s financial incentives to get us in front of as many screens as possible for as long as possible (ad revenue) and if they can get us to interact with those screen on top of that, all the better (data/tracking revenue). Hence, we should only burden ourselves with half the blame for being addicted to TikTok, Instagram and the lot, since such platforms have been most intentionally designed with maximisation of our screen time as the driving principle. From the directness thereby content appears when you open the app, to the swiftness thereby it goes away and is replaced with new, equally alluring content, all aspects are meant to keep you looking at (and interacting with) your screen for as long as possible. This design of course, does not take into account whether our brains can interpret and consume all that content properly.
Not only don’t ad revenue and digital wellbeing go together, they are directly inversely related.
Control(led by) tech
You control tech until it controls you. Having been a tech enthusiast even as a child, I have been challenged by that fact numerous times, from a young age. I always adored reading about new technologies (the then-newly-developing era of the smartphone was a favourite area of mine) and I was quick to surround myself with it and often became absorbed by it.
My parents were neither too severe nor too lax when it came to moderating my tech usage (video games, internet access, smartphone ownership at a relatively young age, etc.). On the mild side, they would remind me to take breaks and point out that I may be spending too much time on my phone. On the more severe side they would occasionally confiscate my Gameboy for some time if they deemed I was too absorbed by it in that instance. In hindsight, I appreciate the balanced stance of my parents towards tech usage, but, I admit, much more would need be done on that front (exclusively by me), as I grew older and tech’s grip on my life grew tighter.
The loudness
In the years that followed a single observation enabled me to begin turning the tides against tech’s unhealthy grasp on my life:
Tech has become too loud.
Every piece of technology around us has gradually demanded more of our time and attention all the while our (limited) capacity remains unchanged. Even outside social media’s attention-getting methods as discussed above, the “smartification” of all things (from app-controlled smart kettles, to screen-equipped fridges running entire operating systems), has made even simple devices more ‘alive’ than they need be and they have become new reasons why we need to interact with even more screens, notifications, system update reminders, and inevitably, necessary repairs.
Smartphones, unsurprisingly, are a category of their own. They contain the better part of our lives: they are our means of communication, payment, identification, planning, organising, they retain our memories as photos, notes and texts, passwords, and too many more to list. This list is growing by the minute, as our phones have already started to become our home’s and car’s contactless keys, health and safety devices and are often coupled with smart wearable devices, to track our sleep quality, our heart rate, oxygen levels 24/7 and which can even proactively suggest seeing a doctor if any of those metrics are determined as irregular. To better grasp the magnitude of uses that are phones and associated devices cover, it is worth attempting to list which aspects of our lives do not reside in our smart devices. Even if readers are not avid tech enthusiasts like myself, I confidently expect this list to be quite short, as I know it is for me.
With such rich databases and interconnectivity features, it is no surprise that are phones have become notification powerhouses, constantly beeping to inform us of a received text, to remind us of our doctor’s appointment, or that a new episode of our favourite TV show is airing and, of course, to let us know that our smart-kettle has brought the water to boiling point. This exposure is evidently draining, and it deteriorates our focus, attention span and even stress levels, one notification at a time.
The silencing
Silencing our loud devices, is for me, the key to regaining control of our technology and most importantly, our focus and attention span; We can also enjoy greater relaxation with less stress-inducing notifications. Silencing can take many more forms that the literal ‘silent’ toggle on our phones. It is refreshing and simultaneously ironic, to see tech companies providing some useful tools for digital wellbeing directly on their devices in the past couple of years. Focus modes, deeper control of notifications per app, screen time and settings that turn on or off automatically based on time and location, are a few that come to mind (more on those in a bit). Below, I list a few of the primary actions that I applied and adapted to my usage, that gradually improved my relationship with technology in a significant way.
#1 Silencing notifications (with care)
There are two types of notifications in this world. The ones you interact with and the ones you don’t; the latter don’t need to clutter your device.
Secondary notifications can be completely turned off or, they can be added to a group of notifications. The latter approach is available in different versions in the various mobile operating system. Google’s Android has time-based notification settings, snooze alerts, priority conversations and notification categories. Apple’s iOS has “Focus Modes” (allowing customisation of notification settings per Mode) and Notification Summary, which, does what the name suggests and has personally saved me countless hours of interaction with unworthy notifications; the user can setup multiple Summaries per day, and select which apps’ notifications are pushed directly (e.g. phone/texts) and which are sent to the Summary (Netflix and podcast apps have been prime examples in my use case). The Summary then displays all the gathered notifications at the predetermined time(s), saving you a significant amount of beeps and boops.
It is crucial to note that certain apps, especially social media and email apps, have more in-depth notification settings within the apps themselves, that allow for greater tailoring of what comes through and what doesn’t (e.g. turn on or off text/emails notifications from particular persons/groups). These can take some time to fine-tune individually, but they pay dividends once you find the optimal filtering for you.
#2 Reducing screen time by tricking ourselves
If you are struggling to reduce the time you spend on certain apps, there is a variety of tricks online to help you reduce it (save the nuclear option of deleting the entire app), but my favourite involves tricking ourselves in a simple manner. Muscle memory is dominant when we use our phone. We don’t need to think of where the Instagram app is located on our homescreen to tap it; we just do it. We can trick our muscle memory by rearranging the position of our most time-consuming apps. That way, you will notice that it takes you a second longer to thing of where the app is (at least at first). This may not sound like a lot, but an additional second can give you the time you need to consider why you picked up your phone and why you want to open the app in question. This simple method is not meant to singlehandedly change your digital habits, but it gives you the headspace to consider whether you want to; something that does not exist when the automation of muscle memory is at work.
In the same spirit, you can physically rearrange your phone as well. It is often proposed that you set your phone facing down when you are outside in a social situation for politeness, but this is good advice in general. Setting your phone facing down not only prevents you from exposure to every single alert that comes up, but also makes you consider when and why you will consciously pick it up, for a second longer than you would if the phone were facing up.
#3 The (literal) silencing
Earlier, I mentioned that the silencing of our tech can take many more forms that the literal one, but that is also an option and a recommendation. Following the above has hopefully contributed to reducing the visual stimuli from constant notifications that are now scarcer but material as opposed to numerous and cluttered. What remains, is for us to find times to also turn off most of the audio that comes from our devices, when we needn’t hear it. Turning your phone to silent (or to vibrate) can greatly improve your ambience, not only for work environments (by enhancing focus) but more crucially, during resting hours, when we are relaxing at home (by reducing distractions). Sonic stimuli affect us much more directly than visual ones (think of how unsettling it is to hear your work’s email notification sound when you wake up on a Saturday morning).
Increments
I have adored technology and all that it enables us to do since I was a child. I invest considerable time and money in it and always care to follow and use the latest software and hardware innovations as soon as I can. I soon found out that such interests can only be retained if I practice self control and discipline, lest the tech uses me more than I use it. Through these principles, I have steadily turned my devices from constantly-beeping, attention-hungry machines, into silent tools that only come alive to convey material information, leaving secondary information available for me to check, at my leissure.
I understand how the above approaches can see minor if not gimick-y to users that are unfamiliar them. Rest assured however, that our focus has deteriorated in increments over the years, and it is in increments that we begin to regain it. With a combination of practical steps and self-discipline, I hope that you will also find that our devices can be silenced to the degree we consider appropriate, so that they materially improve our lives instead of cluttering our already burdened minds.
