New Years Resolution.

Please tell me I’m not the only one to become increasingly frustrated with how much we consume. I’m not talking about waste or food (all very important issues) but no, I’m referring to digitally.

Think about it. We spend all day every day with one screen or another shoved in our face. The amount of information we consume is utterly ridiculous. I have a perpetual headache from all the digital stimulus I am subjecting myself to on a daily basis. Typical day for me last year was; wake up check my phone (yes that’s right putting blue light directly into my eyes mere minutes from waking up). BAM. Advertising, pictures, words, a stream of pure information violently shaking my brain awake.

Then get up, put TV on while I have my morning coffee. I’ve got all the things that are invading my brain though my phone, now also coming at me from a screen about 50x the size! When I get in the car and the radio is blasting; voices, opinions, news, a million and one things to make me stress and overthink.

Arriving at work it’s laptop out and I kill a few more brain cells by focusing on it for hours at a time; emails, scheduling, invoicing, social media and blog updates. It’s a privilege yes, but it’s exhausting. And then after a day at work consuming digital content like crazy, go home and settle in for at least 3 episodes of whatever Netflix show I’m watching, an endless stream of content and stimulus, and because that’s not enough (insert sarcasm) I’m also scrolling on my Instagram feed for about 80% of that time. Back to the double screen whammy.

Image credit: @_dreamanddo_

*BIG SIGH*

And let me tell you I am bloody done with it!!! I am wasting my creative talent, I am dumbing myself down by letting technology fix everything for me, I am desensitizing myself and causing myself to be impatient through the instant gratification of the internet. I don’t THINK anymore. I don’t REFLECT anymore. I have lost the ability to sit in silence without picking up my phone automatically after about 0.1 seconds. I honestly feel like some days I will go insane from not being able to get away from it and I’m sure that I can’t be the only one.

So, below are a list of things that I am going to be intentional about this year when it comes to technology.

1. No checking phone before 9am. Now look, I’m prone to anxiety so I’ll definitely flick the screen on to make sure I haven’t had 60 emergency missed calls from anyone. BUT, other than that; zip, zilch, nada till 9am.

2. No morning TV. Seriously, it is all the same annoying breakfast show hosts with the same fear mongering bullshit and not-so-cleverly hidden advertising.

3. Limiting myself to 2 hours on my laptop at a time before having a long break (longer than 15 minutes). Doesn’t matter if I need to have 6 x 2 hours sessions and it stretches out my day. Breaks are a necessity!

4. One to two episodes MAX of a show in the evenings. The world won’t stop turning if you don’t find out what happens next on that cult show everyone’s obsessing over. You know what happens when you don’t mindlessly shove episode after episode into your psyche? You actually start thinking about and reflecting on what you’ve actually just watched. It has a much more lasting effect.

5. And last and more importantly, get re-acquainted with awesome non digital things that we did before the iPhone3 came out. Puzzles, card games, board games, exercise, chatting with a friend, exploring your neighbourhood, hanging with the pets, literally any number of things! We just seem to forget.

Now! With that all off my chest, just need to find a way to blog away from the computer… because that’s a bit counterproductive now, isn’t it?

G x