Digital clutter
Imagine you are riding a car with its steering in your hands. What if the tires of the car do not follow your commands. Even worse, what if you don’t even know about that. I can’t imagine myself riding that car. But in some tedious arrangement we all are…
How many hours do we spend in a day in front of the screen excluding professional work? PUBG soldiers? I won’t be surprised even if someone will say eight hours a day. I am not going to question what people do in front of the screen. What they do is definitely important, but my concern is how much time they spend in a day. People seek for interaction with the technology for different provisions. Lot of things they do are important. Many of these things are nice but not necessary. I don’t think people mean to spend for five hours a day but once they enter into it, they are bound to succumb. They lose control. Apparently tires are not following their command, and they don’t even know about that.
In the last five or six years social media companies have re-engineered the stuff we are using. It is like, once you enter the realm of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg will order his valets to close the doors for three hours. Why do you want to enter then? Actually, colossal harm is mixed with a few nice stuff. There are groups in social media and if you want to access the content then you need to be checking the notifications. Some professions are hugely associated with social media. WhatsApp has become a new notice board.
With new technology evolving vigorously, the virtual world of gaming presents a surreal experience. It presents an illusion so that a five years old boy, who can’t even ride a bicycle can feel what exactly it feels like when anyone rides a Lamborghini with 349kmph. I can stand and applaud for this advancement of technology, but they are addictive. I mean it is tough to give up once you started enjoying it.
Most of the people who struggle with their digital life are not weak, weird or stupid. Imagine you are surfing on the internet, and you see a fitness app. The first thing you would be telling yourself is, “It is useful. I can know how much I run usually” as if you have no idea how much you run usually. The other thing you might be telling yourself is, “what if this app is useful? I shouldn’t miss this one” in this case you will be somewhat right but not completely. Let me explain this.
Everything we do digitally has some value. Even if you are scrolling over memes in social network, it can be useful somewhere, somehow. But the idea of not missing those values is awful. It is because you might be gaining that value and costing other bigger values. The work which will add more value to you should have higher priority. This much of consciousness is enough. Further, missing out at small gains is alright. It creates some sort of uneasiness, but this strategy is way more productive.
In order to have digitally balanced life firstly we need to analyze which are the things which posses bigger values. This estimation requires some research. Call Newport suggested that you need to remain deprived of technology for at least 30 days and then slowly allow the necessary parts of technology in your life. According to him this will surely help you to separate out the aspects of technology which are necessary in your life.
Newport’s idea is a good one, but sometimes it might be very difficult to implement. I think, one has to pick the stuff which are of higher precedence himself. There is no hard and fast rule for this. But then conscious efforts to choose things out is important. Most of the people are struggling with this, and it makes us feel that it is not a thing to be given any sort of consideration.
I firmly believe that the evacuation of these meaningless stuff, with whom we are fiercely indulged will eventually promote bigger accomplishments in life.
