Ever find yourself overly irritated all the time?
When there is a moment of peace and quiet does it almost drive you crazy?
Do you ever notice how many times people check their phone and their smartwatch which never stops grabbing their attention?
There are lots of reasons for this sense of urgency, but maybe … just maybe, you need a digital detox.
This Substack is an overly simplified digital diet but could be the first step in having a better digitally balanced life. Maybe even get time back to enjoy family, friends, and hobbies. Maybe even enjoy a moment of peace and quiet and be in the moment instead of constantly doom scrolling and fighting with nameless people online.
Digital Detox: How?
Ditch the Smartwatch
Back in the day, you checked your watch to determine the time. If you checked your watch during a meeting or a social gathering it was a signal that you where bored or would rather be in another place.
Now with smartwatches pinging each time your phone gets a notification, it amplifies the amount of pings and dings you get in a day plus those around you think you would rather be somewhere else or those notifications are more important than the task at hand. I had a smartwatch. Now I have a real watch.
Ditch Social Media
Uninstall all social media from your phone. Full stop.
Life gets happier is a direct correlation in the reduction of social media interactions. If you can’t go cold turkey on social media, try to limit your activity to 30 minutes a day. Try to use a computer --- a laptop or a desktop to interact with social media so it is not on your phone. Social media will track you less and you don’t have the endless stream of social media notifications that interrupt the day. If there are social media apps that only run on your mobile device, consider never using them again.
Turn Off Majority of Notifications
Every app wants your attention. Look at me, buy more stuff, more ads, more time sucked right out of you to never get back. Turn off all notifications to start then just keep the ones on for the core apps you use to communicate with your trusted circle of friends, family, and business associates. Use more voice calls for real communications, have a secure chat app to keep your conversations private, and maybe email. Do you check your post office box every four minutes, you don’t need to check your email every four minutes either. Determine what is right for you and turn everything else off. Do it, turn them off.
Put Down the Mobile Phone
Part of being addicted to smoking is the act of smoking. Constantly looking at your mobile phone is habit forming so you need to take time and be away from the phone. Do you feel anxious when you don’t have your phone? That is a sign you need to be away from your phone. Start with meals, leave the phone away from the table, have personal conversations. Reduce the amount of time the phone is actaully in your hand. Stop taking it to the washroom, really, many people do! I used too.
Side Effect: Increased Privacy
Getting away from the digital addiction is the first step in having a well balanced digitally private life. Constantly being connected, feeding social media algorithms, big tech, and big brother with every single thing you do is not healthy for society.
While you are getting digitally detoxed get rid of your home assistant. Google Home and Amazon Alexa are forever listening and storing everything they hear in your house. Unplug them. Don’t give them away. They belong in the trash.
Adopt Good Digital Practices
While on the digital diet it is a good time to reinforce healthy online practices. Just like getting physically healthy is diet and exercise, getting digitally healthy is disconnecting and learning digital skills to increase privacy.
Private Browser
Instead of using Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, pick a browser like Brave or Firefox. They are available for Mac, PC, and Mobile devices. They both stop website trackers by default.
Private Browsing
Even when using a private browser, make sure you use the private browser mode so each window or tab is isolated and cookies and other stuff are deleted when the browser windows are closed. It cleans your history each time you close the webpage.
Private DNS
No matter what app you use on your PC, Mac or handset — if you are NOT using a private DNS, your DNS provider knows every server/website/app you communicate with and for most people its their service provider or Google (8.8.8.8). Use a service like Quad9 or 1.1.1.1. We use this on our phones by default. This is a techie subject which I will cover in detail in the future.
Private Search Engine
When you are browsing use a search engine like DuckDuckGo or Brave Search which does not track any of your searches.
Sales Pitch (being honest): All the thoughts above are what we are wrapping into our Privacy Society phones, so if you are heading for a digital detox, a greater digitally private life, or want a lifestyle phone to separate work and personal communications, please check them out.
Conclusion
Attempting to break any addiction is hard. I am digital addict. I work on it everyday. I reduce one service at a time that I don’t really need. Doom scroll a little less. Use my Privacy Mini Pro on the weekend and evenings instead of my polluted app filled Samsung. Following the steps above can get you started. Reach out anytime to chat about your stories of putting the phone down and experiencing more of life’s special moments instead of your head stuck in a screen. Take care.