Does your smartphone own you or do you own your smartphone?

Courtesy of freepik

In Tristan Harris’s 2017 Ted Talk “How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day”, he talks about the need to change the way we use our online timelines and thoughts to what we actually want to be doing. Thereby, we can fight against what online companies want us to be using their apps and websites for:

“We need a design renaissance. Once you have this view of human nature that you can steer the timelines of a billion people. Just imagine there’s people who have some desire about what they want to do, what they want to be thinking and want they want to be feeling. And how they want to be informed. And, we’re all just tugged in all these different directions and you have a billion people just tugged into all these different directions. Well, imagine an entire design renaissance that tried to orchestrate the most and empowering time well-spent way for those timelines to happen.”

-Tristan Harris

In current day, billions of people are at the fingertips of companies such as Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Netflix. I like to think of myself as someone who isn’t quite as “connected” as my peers, meaning that I don’t have as many social media accounts nor do I sit online on Facebook watching other people’s lives. I try to set limits to the amount of time that I spend on social media. Maybe I only go on Facebook because I know it’s my friend’s birthday who lives abroad and I want to send them a message. Or, I only go on Instagram to post a photo for my art portfolio or graduate program. However, I do have problems with spending time on my phone on sites like Netflix and Reddit. I would consider these mindless entertainment sites. I also spend a large amount of my day syncing my Fitbit steps to my phone and even going so far as to jump up out of my office desk chair every hour when my wrist notifies me if I’m under 250 active steps that hour. I’ve been conditioned by a health app and wristband. There are worst things, I suppose, and there are better things, as well. I spend a large proportion of my smartphone time reading news stories and reviewing my graduate program’s Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) app. I would consider these latter three sites to be productive uses of my time. So, who decides how to balance the mundane entertainment in your day to activities that are productive?

With the onset of smartphones, we literally have the world at our fingertips like never before. When does this become an addiction or overkill? The New York Times reported in 2017 that the average American checks their smartphone once every 12 minutes. That equates to checking your phone 80 times a day. When looking at my personal time on my smartphone, I’m below average compared to my fellow American, but not too far behind. In the past week, I averaged 3.4 hours of screen time/day, 75 notifications/day and 39 phone unlocks/day. Obviously, this would vary by week and if you had a more social week or special events such as meeting up with friends or your annual vacation. However, I would encourage everyone to look at their phone usage times and ask themselves if they could be using their time online more productively.

An interesting story I stumbled upon features, Mike Merrill, and his true story of how he sold 11,823 shares of himself to investors around the world who help decide his major life decisions for him. Although he began his personal experiment as a way to help aid against his indecisiveness and to decide on a new career path, his process of having a “board of advisors” has expanded exponentially. His investors have voted on agendas such as if he should move in with his girlfriend to if he should leave his desk job to if he should get a vasectomy or not. Large life decisions that Merrill has placed in the hands of his involved investors are all voted for online on his website. Is Merrill a good example of “unplugging” or is he connected more than ever?

Courtesy of Mike Merrill via The Hustle

Merrill is just one example of morphing how you can allow yourself to be controlled by smartphone capabilities. What are ways that you can reduce your online activities and use your remaining time productively for a more robust life?