Your Relationship to Media Needs to Change Yesterday (No, It Doesn’t.)
The why. Reflect on it.
The when. Reflect on that, too.
The how. Don’t forget that.
The who. Are you considering this?
The what. Content. People. Amount of time.
Dependency? Am I dependent? Hint, to a large extent, it is a global socially accepted (also shamed) drug that the World is on.
No shame here. Awareness is an important component in breaking habits and brings in intentional shifts.
When is the last time you reflected or considered your relationship to how you engage with the media that you expose yourself to? Make today be the day that you consider this, and consider putting it onto your calendar if you don’t notice yourself at least checking in monthly. None of the media that you expose yourself to will ask or invite you into this.
Below you’ll find 3 succinct reasons to expand on the five above. One bonus for each!
Why?
- Your bandwidth is limited. Distractions vs intentional immersion is important to consider!
- You may be using it as a way to get away from less desirable feelings, responsibilities or duties.
- You may be getting influenced in a direction that you do not desire. You may not even recognize this to be the case for months or years, if ever.
Bonus! You may be on the road. You need to focus there! Get off of your phone!
When?
- When do you find yourself engaging with certain types of media? Is there a habit there?
- When do you feel that the content you are engaging with was what you originally went onto the device to engage or interact with?
- When do you stop engaging with that media? Is it a point of exhaustion, boredom or ‘snapping out of it’?
Bonus! The Curiosity Killer. When have you had a curiosity that you immediately Googled or searched online? The ease of solution not only creates a feedback loop of on-demand entitlement to’ knowing’, but it also challenges the capacity for critical reflection, information processing and ultimately creates a habit of depending on that technology to continue to know.
Consider going to find it in the library or spending time researching how much you already know, talking to subject matter experts, or just sitting and pondering it.
How?
- Are you engaging on more than one device?
- How efficiently are you getting what you intended to do?
- How many hours are you spending daily and weekly? There are many apps to guide you on that.
Bonus: The psychological hooks. Much of the content that you engage with are actually psychologically primed for you, where the intersect of inspiration is also a reinforcement or perpetuation of an insecurity. What does that mean? Many of the people you engage with are also those who you may idolize and either consciously or unconsciously, strive for similarity. You may also notice subtle comparison with. Seeing certain content may empower, inspire or enable you into being, thinking and feeling, pursuing or acting a particular way. Learn your mind's tricks since consumerism and app engagement data metrics already have factored this in and are leveraging it onto you.
Who?
- Are the content streams that you are engaging with distractions, or are they being intentionally immersed in.
- Are your close contacts benefiting you or hindering your quality of life and social media experience? The gloss of obligation for being connected with your friends through it isn’t true. You can be perfectly well connected with friends and not be connected through social media. Questions of privacy, type of content shared, expectations can arise here.
- Are you being informed, invited into curiosity, entertained, challenged, or triggered? Furthermore, is it paralyzing you when it challenges you, or are you motivated into a healthy response in action?
Bonus: Being Seen. Who is the content that you are putting into the World intended for?
What?
- Is the content that I am engaging with contributing to my life or adding more difficulty?
- If the way I am engaging with media isn’t in my favour, am I adapting to improve this?
- Am I dependent on media for my sense of self, connection with others, sense of understanding the World?
Bonus: Other things that you want to be doing, thinking, feeling, experiencing. What alternative things would I like to be inviting into my life? Hobbies? activities? Interests? Education? Vocation? Relationships? A Break? Nutrition? Connection?
Closing Remarks:
All of these are worthy to consider, especially regularly. The time and energy that you put towards aspects of your life are contingent on considering the things that may be standing in the way of the life you want to be leading. Fortunately, this tool that has a utility that is a globally socially accepted tool for relative ‘escape’ can be adapted to the utilitarian avenue that it is, impinging less on your life and making more time for depth in it.
Today, tomorrow, yesterday, and next week, also next month, consider reevaluating your relationship to all of your technologies. If there is a course correction to minimize invasiveness and bring in more contribution, consider making those changes! You can always seek help or guidance, if you need it, too!
Bonus:
Specific to a question asked on the Nurosene public page, ‘What happens to brain energy if the first thing you do is look at your phone?’, I answered the following:
I think of engaging with the phone first thing in the morning similar to someone asking you to wake up from sleep and immediately run a sprint, then a marathon. It is a heavy burden for us to consider for ourselves, almost exhaustive. But we have all conceded to subjecting our brains to this. In sleep, especially near wakefulness, if our sleep hasn’t be challenged and isn’t attempting to ‘catch up’, we are in a deeply restful state. The moment we consider engaging with a cellphone, the brain shifts to alpha waves, which become stronger when directly looking at your phone. The device and most apps are primed to engage the brain, activating the brain's reward pathway, which is then primed to engage with exploration, task completion. What can interestingly arise in the habit of doing this daily is reinforcing a higher threshold of brain stimulation required to feel ‘balanced’. the threshold for feeling ‘normal’ or ‘yourself’ is higher to meet this, and so you will engage more with the device throughout the day.
Some circumstances require your earlier phone engagement, but minimizing this has many benefits, including, most importantly, giving your brain, body, and pace to your day an opportunity to be set at a healthier rate than the jolt that the phone can give.
Kaveh Kavoosi, MD
