Secrets to Re-Energize Your Life...Without Screens!
Our phones open the doors to a myriad of communication, convenience, and connection, and that’s all great, but have you ever considered how all-consuming our reliance on our devices really is?
Are we literally addicted? Common Sense media says kids 8-12 spend an average of 6 hours on their screens. Teens are up to 9 hours per day. One study suggests that teens who spend 5+ hours/day on screens are 2x as likely to say they’re unhappy. Adults average around 3 hours and 35 minutes.
OK, so most of us don't want to be without our devices, even while we know that they are taking over some aspects of life. What can we do?
Tiffany Shlain, who I spoke with recently, about her groundbreaking book called 25/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week, has some important suggestions for humans of every age.
- The power of unplugging: To gain more happiness, peace, creativity, and contentment, did you know you can unplug one day a week? This simple, perhaps challenging, but certainly not impossible act gives you back the gift of time: to foster relationships, laughter, community, shared interests and the biggest luxury of all – to do nothing.
- So much to gain: Rather than be tethered to the incessant bells of emails, notifications, alerts (in other words interrupting what you are focused on so you can attend to someone else’s priorities), you can actually reclaim your time, your peace and your passions.
- Reclaim YOUR priorities: Instead of focusing on what you are losing (FOMO) you can choose to focus on all you are gaining, such as your resilience, access to your own ideas versus constantly digesting what other people think, post and posit. Relationships have the chance to blossom when they become the focus of our attention, and people feel respected when they are seen.
- Eye contact matters: as we attend to our screens, we are less present to one another. “Children have a risk of having less eye contact with parents and caregivers than perhaps any generation before.” This directly affects our ability to read another’s body signals and to walk in their shoes and to interact with empathy.
- Easy does it: This Tech Shabbat does not have to be a drastic, intrusive change. On her website https://www.letitripple.org/character-day/, Tiffany gives us a week by week challenge of introducing small changes (so we don’t freak out if we don’t get our phone fix!) It's organized in stages:
- Take back our time
- Reclaim joy
- Cultivate character online
- Tech Shabbat
- The power of ritual
Allow yourself the time to re-energize your life. Know that you have options and that you can make this your favorite time of the week - it's easier than you think!
Grab more tips on how to put these ideas into practice at https://amzn.to/30WqkOU
https://www.letitripple.org/about/tiffany-shlain/
