SWITCHING OFF
The dangers of overexposure to technology are becoming increasingly documented and in the USA there’s even an organisation dedicated to making changes in the media and tech industries.
Carrying a smartphone around is like having a slot machine in your pocket – everything about it is programmed to get you addicted, according to the Centre for Humane Technology, which seeks to reverse what it calls “human downgrading”.
It’s ironic then that Google CEO Sundar Pichai is said to be a fan of Jomo. A few months ago the company introduced a range of “digital wellbeing tools” to help promote healthier tech use.
Other than Digital Wellbeing, which gives you a complete picture of your daily digital habits, the following apps are now also available at the Google Play Store:
Unlock Clock shows you a counter of the number of times you’ve unlocked your phone.
Post Box stops your phone bothering you incessantly – the app bundles messages and delivers them at regular intervals, with a maximum of four deliveries a day.
Morph helps you customise your phone by setting up modes that give you access only to specific groupings of apps. When it’s active you receive notifications only for apps that are part of that mode.
Desert Island asks you to choose the seven apps you’d take with you to a desert island and you get a daily summary of how well you managed to stick to your choice of apps, as well as how much time you spent on other apps. We Flip aims to get people off their phone during social gatherings and encourages switching off as a group. The idea is that everyone in the group flips their phones face down at the same time with the app running. The first person to flip their phone back ends the session – and you can decide if that comes with some sort of “fine”. If you’re in a restaurant with a group of friends perhaps the person who flips their phone first must pay for the next round of drinks. Apple has enhanced its Do Not Disturb functions on iPhones and the Screen Time app offers users a dashboard highlighting how much time they’ve spent using which apps, how many notifications they receive, how often they pick up their device and how their usage patterns compare with the average. It also allows users to set daily time limits for individual apps, and a notification is shown when the time limit is about to expire. Getting into the Jomo zone means thinking more about your tech use and monitoring the way it makes you feel. We can’t rid ourselves of tech altogether, but we can keep tabs on it the same way we’d watch what we eat. So take note of what energises and nourishes you and what makes you feel unhappy, anxious or lethargic.
‘It’s not essential to know what everyone else is doing’