As much as we are stuck inside home and having time to ourselves, spending more time on screen than ever, it can get overwhelming. Personally, as much as I review technology related products and even the fact that we have to stay online pretty much all the time gets to me to a point that I go – “screw this, I need a break.” In times like these, Digital Wellbeing is more important than ever. That said, in this article – I am going to talk about how to cope and manage things properly with the digital realm, so that it doesn’t get too overwhelming.
Digital Wellbeing
The word “Digital Wellbeing” – to put it in layman term, it means to have a healthy balance of digital and time off your screens. But given the fact that, everything that we do during this RMO or under Quarantine heavily relies on our monitors, smartphone and even TV. Partly a reason why I took a step back from tech with Analog Photography because I can still enjoy something I love doing – which is taking pictures but not have my eyes fixated on a screen. But that’s not possible given the circumstances. So, what can we do to keep this balance, to give some space for your mind, body and soul?
To start off, work-life balance is very important and keeping them separate is necessary, especially right now. Our friend Tarvin Gill from Mashable SEA has a way to do that – by keeping work and play on separate displays. I do enjoy doing that but I don’t have an extra monitor to go about. But with so many software advancements, both Windows and Mac OS lets you have multiple desktop screen where you can keep both your work and play separate – or to put it in Tarvin’s words,
“Not to let work and play get intertwined.”
Even following the same kind of work hours as you’d do on a non-RMO days helps too. Get started at 8am and get off work at 6pm. Take a break and probably indulge in something that keeps you off that screen: Workout, read a book, do some art or you can even cook.
Personally, I have never been a fan of using my smartphone the moment I step into my home because it causes quite a lot of distraction and when I work, I don’t want such distractions to bother me anyway. Smartphones these days have features like Digital Wellbeing baked right into the system settings where you can monitor how much you have used your phone and to have a distraction free environment by activating the Me time or Work time like on the Samsung Galaxy S20 and the S20+ we reviewed and even iOS devices offer such features. If you have a supported android phone, you can download here but if you happen to run an older version of android, you might hit a snag – but you can use one of my personal favorite application, OFFTIME which does a fantastic job in making you stay away from your phone and it helped me get over my smartphone addiction.
Entertainment doesn’t necessarily mean its all online. In fact, trying something different like learning a new hobby or rather spicing things up with your existing hobby can even help you a lot. If you want to have a great family time, board games can bring the whole family together for a moment, well not for Monopoly cuz that just makes any situation worse. Playing some music on your speakers and jazzing to the beat is another way where you can just take your eyes off the screen and keep your soul all juiced up with some amazing rhythm. Voice connects us more, and in that way you can even call someone you really want to talk to – that helps too, as long your eyes are off the screen.
Coming from a tech site where we review tons of technology product and we talking about Digital Wellbeing is ironic but the truth is – even we feel overwhelmed. Honestly, we are humans too. This whole situation has put a huge pressure on all of us but we do our best to give good content for you guys to enjoy and at the same time – be able to take our time off screens as well. Hopefully we can get through this. I do understand we all have our own ways to cope with things and these are just some things we do. In fact, we did a video where we talked about how our MCO has been treating us which is on our Facebook page – which you can check it out below.
Stay safe and sound. We can get through this. <3
