Have you ever felt like you are drowning in a sea of notifications? You sit down to relax for a moment, only to be interrupted by a text message from your family member asking for help, a social media notification indicating that you have a new comment on your post, and a spam call from an insurance company. You are exhausted and despite your best attempts to regulate your emotions and to respond to people promptly, something about your relationship with technology is not working. You no longer feel joy when you see a new notification pop up, but rather a dull sense of dread. You sometimes fantasize about smashing your smartphone and living in a remote area where no one can contact you. You are not alone in these feelings. Nevertheless, technology will continue to advance, and therefore, if you have an outdated mode of relating to technology that is burning you out, it is time for you to update your relationship with technology and gain some mastery over sane ways to communicate through tech. This blog post will review three basic techniques to balance technology use: turn off notifications, take periodic breaks from your devices, and prioritize face-to-face communication and healthy physical touch.
Turn Off Notifications
The first technique is to turn off your notifications. All of them? Well, most of them. When you purchase a device and other subscriptions for services, these services will automatically turn on notifications. This is a problematic starting point for living a sane life with technology. Thus, instead, it can be helpful to start your relationship with any device by turning off all notifications, and then carefully identifying which notifications to turn back on. Turn on notifications for anything that your wise mind (i.e. the wiser part of you) believes is important enough to interrupt the present moment. If the notification is not highly important, then block the notification from interrupting your present moment. Certainly, some types of notifications are more passive (rather than push notifications), whereby they wait patiently for you to check them. These passive notifications can be helpful because they wait for you to return to your to-do list and plan appropriately. The key, nevertheless, is to start without notifications and make wise choices about which notifications to enable.
Take periodic breaks from your devices
Second, if you want to rewire your negative association with incoming text messages, it is important to have periodic times when you do not use that particular device or service. There are two levels to this suggestion: (1) periodically removing yourself from specific services or devices that have led to conditioned negative emotional responses (i.e. turning off your iPhone for two days of your vacation, even if you still use your tablet), and (2) periodically halting any form of a to-do list, planning, and notifications altogether (i.e. be completely flexible with what you do for two days of your vacation). The former strategy allows your mind to recuperate from specific associations with devices or electronic services, while the latter strategy allows your mind to recuperate from the incessant demand of needing to attend to tasks right now. These breaks place an important pause in the addictive patterns that humans develop with electronic services and the pressure to adhere to scheduled tasks.
Prioritize face-to-face communication and healthy physical touch
Third, increase the amount of time you spend face-to-face with other people and the amount of time you engage in healthy physical touch. Human beings have co-evolved as social mammals, dependent on engagement with other human beings for social nurturance, connection, and guidance. The invention of the smartphone did not eliminate human beings’ need to be close to other people. Currently, technology is aiding face-to-face communication through video meetings (e.g. Zoom or FaceTime). Although research is still ongoing, it appears to be reasonable to conceptualize the benefits of various forms of communication on a spectrum with texting being the least socially gratifying, followed by phone, facetime, and finally face-to-face in-person communication. Each form of communication that involves more social cues better approximates what our ancestors experienced. Likewise, physical touch does not primarily refer to sexuality, but rather denotes a broad spectrum of behaviors from holding a baby, to placing a hand on a person’s shoulder, to going to massage therapy. Healthy physical touch positively affects levels of dopamine and serotonin, contributing to better mental health outcomes.
If you are exhausted with your emails or text messages, set aside some time to change the way that you relate to technology. Take back healthy control over the way you engage with technology, and the time that you spend working on developing a more effective system will save you many hours of time lost in notifications that are ineffectively interrupting the peace and joy of being completely in the present moment.
About the Author
Samuel Eshleman Latimer (he/his), Psy.D., is a clinical psychology postdoctoral fellow that specializes in effective conflict management and dialectical behavior therapy. Samuel also works to help individuals, couples, and families decrease interpersonal difficulties and manage challenges associated with borderline personality disorder. Samuel believes that people do not need to choose between learning effective techniques that are based on science and developing warm, genuine relationships, as both of these styles complement each other. Click Here to learn more about Samuel’s experience and therapeutic style.