According to Android Authority, digital well-being is defined as “a movement concerned with controlling the amount of time we spend in front of mobile devices, the web, and technology in general.”
If we recognize we need to control it, that means we’re also acknowledging the potential harm that overreliance on screens can cause, such as shortening our attention spans and harming our productivity.
Not concerned with the impact of technology and digital devices on your well-being? Maybe you should be. Here are a few statistics to help illustrate why you should be concerned:
- It takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to regain productivity after being distracted by social media or another digital interruption.
- Social media is decreasing our attention spans.
- Social media is also increasing our brains’ dependency on immediate gratification, leading to a new neural network of equating likes, comments and followers to our concept of our work self-worth (scary stuff).
Our relationships with our computers and phones impact everything from our self-confidence to our productivity. Those devices even influence how much sleep we get each night due to the light from our phones and laptops impacting our bodies’ natural evening state of rest and relaxation. This is the reason blue light glasses and filters are now being marketed and sold. Big smartphone companies have even begun installing “Digital Well-Being” governors on our phones that can limit how much time we can spend on social and email and other apps. (Of course, you are responsible for setting these controls up and using them.)
Clearly, we’re all impacted personally. But business owners and their companies are impacted in another way, too.
Our remote world has not left a lot of room for separation. When you settle down at night, especially if you are working remotely, the most you probably get is about a 15-foot separation between your “office” and your relaxation space. So even when you’re “relaxing,” work is right there.
I had one CEO share with me, “It is almost impossible to walk by my desk without seeing something that needs my attention.” In addition, for the most part our phones can do everything that our computers can do. So when you hear that magical ding at 8 pm while watching Homeland, it could be anything. Still, you immediately look at the screen, hoping for that sense of immediate gratification. Only most of the time, the ding isn’t something good. It’s a stressor, probably one related to work that could have been dealt with in the morning. Now, it’s too late, and your ability to relax and sleep well has already been disrupted.
Even before the pandemic, the World Health Organization reported that companies around the world are losing a TRILLION dollars a year to anxiety. I don’t know what the statistic looks like now, but, fortunately, there’s always hope. My team and I at A Better Place are here to support you through the crazy, and we have plenty of resources for you. To start, you can check out our blog on social media about how mental health impacts your company. You can also download our free ebook, How to Stay Sane During Insane Times.
Plus, you can stay tuned! More helpful, relevant answers are right around the corner.
Coming up next in our blogs is a post about “5 Steps to Improve Digital Well-Being.”
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