Notifications! They
call for an action. You cannot get rid of them without addressing them. With
smartphones, they are the first things to address. This is the starting point
where these machines have started giving us instructions. Those tiny instructions,
that red dot in the right corner of webpage, How that contrasting red dot can
steal your time.
Internet is all
about hyperlinks. At the ease of a click, the portal opens to take you on a
tour to some another page of information or fun.
These red dots sow
seeds of curiosity. They call out for an action. Every entrepreneur on internet
wants to earn your time on their virtual establishment. Internet is free, but
your time is the currency which everyone wants to earn. We are no saint either.
We also curate those
tiny seeds of hyperlinks like the one below which will attempt to persuade you
to visit some of our contents curated by us. Any online venture including ours
will do its best to get your attention. Once you enter or get connected with an
online establishment; there will be attempts to keep you engaged with them in
one form or another. You don't need to click that; but we will attempt our best
to convince you to follow that hyperlink to our YouTube Channel's homepage. You need not visit the webpage; but you will
receive persuasions to hook up with link.
Surprisingly, we
help online social media platforms to produce content from our side. Our random
social media posts are such a big help for the corporations like Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, etc. We are continuously generating content for them and in
the process consuming content for them. Even a junk and boring social media
post works for their favor as it compels the audience to move on to look for a
better content in their feed. Sometimes junks on social media gets viral as too
many people express their dislike towards such posts. Even a negative
engagement from a good percentage of initial users can lead to something viral
to disrupt million timelines.
Even a mindless
selfie has a deep meaning for social media platforms.
Our time spent on
these platforms is the currency for these tech giants. This currency is
converted to conventional money through the complex mechanism explained in this
blog post
One slight vibration
on the smartphone can eat up few seconds to few hours of your time.
We have developed
the habit of randomly checking notifications. Why?
How Notifications
can install the FOMO software in our brain? (FOMO = fear of missing out)
Fear of missing out;
people are paranoid to this fear. FOMO is observed in case of social media
usage as well. For many of us, usage of social media is just an obligation to
towards this fear. We do not want to miss the best stuff. Social media has some
benefits in its core design like presence on social media platforms will let
you be aware with latest and cool developments happening all around world.
When it comes to
notifications on your smartphones, social media platforms, new email alerts on
your personal mailbox, or any random webpage we have a tendency towards this
FOMO obligation. Even the junkiest of the notifications successfully earns our
split second of time and attention. Better crafted junks earn a higher
attentiveness from us.
If you are a news
application user; you are prone to read through news updates which do not have
any practical significance towards your life goals. The split seconds and
subsequent time spent on your smartphones summed up together will surprise you.
I do not want to
make this conversation lengthier by running up numbers. We must spend some time
analyzing how much of smartphone usage per day is spent towards unnecessary
activities.
You can achieve
wonders if you can divert a portion of your time and focus from smartphones to
something which really matters. Smartphones are sucking out the smart matter
from us. They are enslaving us. Smartphones not only consume our time they also
consume our focus. Imagine you are at work fully immersed into your ongoing
project. You have a job to do within the stipulated time. Your smartphone
buzzes. It seeks your attention. You respond to it. That notification opens a
portal of time-consuming monster. That monster disguised as the sweet dose of
dopamine not only kills your time, but also your focus.
Somehow, after
wasting some time you resume your unfinished task. Now, your energy level is
down, also you are distracted. You struggle to regain that lost focus back.
But, your mind is wandering towards those curiosities which were induced by
some of those notifications. These curiosities spread into your mind.
Your brain is split
into two parts. Even though you have an anxiety towards an important unfinished
task, you may end up grabbing the smartphone to start another session of stare
and scrolling. Next time whenever you find in such similar situation; this of a
movie scene picturized on a drug addict, who despite of serious attempts to
control himself end up grabbing the drugs. That mindless grabbing of smartphone
is similar to that picturization.
(*Include a picture
of drug abuse* along with smartphone use)
Nothing catastrophic
will happen if you will not go through these group chats, status updates on
WhatsApp, Instagram or Facebook. These social media conversations mostly
contain mindless status updates, who is travelling where, political propaganda,
provoking communal hatred, birthdays and some meaningful mostly non-relevant
knowledge. This is what most of us fear to miss out. Unfortunately, important
things in life do not come up with this fear of missing out. You either miss
them or grab them.
I had a habit of
reading news of my smartphone. The left to right panel swipe on my smartphone
home screen opens Google launcher. This served me news articles suited with my
interest of news I preferred to read. This had been years of cultivated habit.
When I started the offlinetherapy.in project; I realized how these news
articles suggested by Google's algorithm kills my time. E.g. I enjoyed watching
Avengers; I had some serious Google quest to know more about the legacy of the
mega saga. Google's algorithm provided me regular feed of any new update
happened in the Marvel's Cinematic Universe. Months after the release of
Endgame movie; I had read innumerous news updates, blog posts, alternate
theories about the MCU.
My interest in MCU
increased many folds. MCU updates are one such examples among many of my other
interests. Yes, I liked those news feeds. But really does it matter to know
everything about which I had shown interest sometime in past. Isn't its Google
forcing me to like something forever which I liked once?
Yes, you can give
feedback to Google that you are no more interested in some topic. You can
customize that. But, that’s the trick you are opening more of your time and
preference related data to the digital platform. The semantic platform will
know you better. You are donating more of your time and focus to the medium.
This is all due to
the fear of missing out.
Lock your smartphone
in the cupboard. If you must be on a voice call, take out the feature phone and
insert the sim card into it. Spend a phone away from multimedia technology. You
might discover something good about you.
Remember Ola/Uber,
PayTM, Netbanking, Whatsapp, FB, Instagram, Twitter, NEWS apps; they never
existed in feature phone era. We have thrived then, we can thrive now as well.
We must observe smartphone free days at least every month to really know what
we are missing out for which we should be fearful about.
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