Digital Distractions & Designing for Happiness
To be honest, this blog post was due last week, but then I got.. uhum.. digitally distracted. And I am fine with it. The following post will address ideas on how to design intentionally and experimentally for more positive emotions. In addition, find reflections on digital distractions interspersed. Yet to start chronologically as in “here is how it came to be”, would be disrespectful of your time, attention span, and life constraints.
First off, self-care is an evasive, slippery beast if you only pay divided attention to it. However, if you halt and marvel at self-care as if it was a rare, or even unique creature, like those sea dragons at an aquarium, your love story for the subject may begin.
Self-Care
To avoid further ado and digital distractions, I purposefully have not researched a.k.a. google searched “self-care”and “digital distractions”. I avoided falling into that time sink of fascinating content. Instead, I headed the advice of mindfulness experts saying “You are here, now. You are enough.” Again, I am not entirely sure who said this when and how exactly, but I know a book that kind of addresses it.
Yes indeed, we are all experts on the matter of our own selves spiced with a healthy dose of subjective, self-protecting distortion. Each of us thinks that we are immune to negative outcomes, that we are right in arguments, and that our experiences are vastly different from others. So not wearing a helmet or seatbelt is easily excused with “I am a good biker or driver, this is the right thing to do, and I can clearly see the street situation and make good decisions.” Knowing this, I started paying attention to statistics more and always buckle up. And I truly believed and questioned both “I personally am not addicted to my iPhone” and “Am I?”
Back to the sea dragon: life so far has taught me that self-care is important for a sustainable systemic design of life. This is a mouthful. So let’s break that sandwich down.
Things are sustainable if you can maintain engagement and energy for them for a longer period, and until they are completed. If you are a runner and have a time or distance goal, you might want to pick a speed or approach that is sustainable. This example also illustrates beautifully how momentary well-being, as in when you leave the house in the dawn at near zero degrees, is different from long-term well-being. Sometimes, we have to pick our poison and opt for one at the cost of the other. Sustainability is not just eco packaging. It can also be applied in design-oriented self-improvement, which is exactly why I personally don’t believe in diets and rather look for sustainable approaches that do well for holiday season, and systemic constraints.
In order for a design, i.e. crafted approach, to be systemic, we must consider the system, which is not exactly the same as the context. A system is a structured constitution of people such as family members, or beliefs or rules. Even chaos can pattern a system, and has to be considered. A context on the other hand is a snapshot of themes, and factors impacting the central issue. A context is composed of many systems and its elements. My point is that you have to consider your room mate or partner, or supervisor or dependents before you jump to “Eureka! I found the right solution.” This is a big gaping need in silicon valley led solutions; pay attention to it! The dominant and traditional approach is still too much focused on the individual, and too little on the system. Take for instance, Tim Ferriss’ “Make your bed every morning” — this comes from a bachelor and no co-sleeping parent.
Lastly, designing means to purposefully approach a challenge, try out solutions and then settle for a good enough prototype that is expected to adapt. Each self-baked cake is a result of some research, trial and error baking, and post-hoc improvement. Similarly, a top notch design artifact goes through the same procedure. Same same. Baked cake and Alessi design item, trust me.
Self-care is a much talked about buzzword in mental healthcare and comes up frequently once people hit a wall. Someone might ask “Tell me about your self-care!” and it is not uncommon to hear “What? You mean, when I binge-watch Stranger Season 2, go to the gym or what?” Yes, what are your habits when it comes to recharging or filling your sails with wind again (wayfinding metaphor borrowed from “Designing your Life”, Bill Burnett & Dave Evans) exactly?
Digital Behavior — Good and Bad
I am one or two clicks away from giving you better answers, yet in line with knowing enough, this is what I know: many people from younger generations struggle with their use of digital solutions, its impact on their productivity and psychology (feelings, thoughts, and behavior). Millennials, digital natives, generation X and [google search for perfect list] you included as a twitter, medium, and social media consumer: Tell me about your digital behavior? What serves you and what hinders you? What comes at what cost? And how much time have you dedicated towards finding a sustainable, systemic design solution to this digital problem?
When I offered my workshop on “Designing Your Life for More Happiness- How to Hack Digital Distractions”, I made a clear point about pulling description and judgment apart. It makes a big difference to either say “I am a phone addict! I use it like 5 hours each day, sometimes delete social media apps, but man. Yet I also love to browse instagram after a long day.” versus “I use my phone on average 5 hours, I use work and work-unrelated apps, and I have mixed feelings about my use.“ The latter aims more at describing behavior, and keeps out the strong judgments. When judgment is withheld, there is more room for insight and empathy.
Task: Describe your digital behavior in a few sentences and defer judgment.
I wish I could say I gave the workshop attendees the implied, expected and needed tools on how to hack their digital challenge. I told them outright I wouldn’t solve their happiness for them. Even the white happiness pill that I offered at the very beginning, I quickly revealed as a sugary tic tac. I could only offer space and an impulse for people that were clearly interested (workshop waitlisted) to solve this for themselves. Actually, my approach can be best described as cultivating the right mindset coming thus from a meta-level, without step-by-step lists to follow blindly and half-heartedly. Instead, I repeat “Make your own jar of happiness”, i.e. cook your own dinner, knit your own socks, and bake your own bread or found your own business or project. Why else are people doing these things, if they don’t provide them happiness?
Addiction or Not
The term addiction came up during the discussion, and I asked the attendees to explore this loaded label and consider other ones. How about “high-frequency behavior”, “compulsive use”, “conflicted consumption”, or “overeating media on screens”? I simply do not think that jumping to a conclusion is the best approach in understanding our own self, and finding the first step towards more happiness around this topic.
High-frequency behavior seems to be the least judgmental, and would be totally expected, if you were the social media director at a fashion firm (context!).
Compulsive use is loaded, with negative connotation, yet also opens the door for a variety of fixes, such as for other compulsive behaviors.
Conflicted consumption indicates that there is a conflict within ourselves, it is asking for differentiation: some high frequency behavior is fine, others worrisome.
And lastly, overeating the media suggests that creating a healthier diet, with different distributions is key: more relaxation music, less rapid image browsing.
Task: Find 5 different labels for your “smart phone addiction”.
Design Research — What do people say?
At my workshop, I asked people to brainstorm both challenges around digital distractions and their own solutions. This is far from properly planned, multi-stage design research, yet a recommendable first step in that I step away from my subjective point to gather input. Here are their tell-telling answers:
Challenges
> too many choices & distractions
> bad posture
> many whatsapp groups
> that you can do everything on mobile
> whatsapp messages coming in
> addicts to social media/“overprikkeld”
> challenge to think about myself only
> no time/way to feel totally relaxed
> no discipline for sport as much as I want
> emails that might have come in
> reading the news compulsively instead of a book (on Self Discipline)
> answering & reading all the comments
> keeping in touch with my friends
> ignoring the phone
> too many choices & distractions
> FB scrolling/“uit verveling”
> seeing apps in your home screen & feeling the urge to open them
> comparing on social media
Solutions
> telefon switch it off
> read more (books & magazines)
> quality time app
> delete apps
> play more, so less need to be on your phone
> nadenken : word in her big van/ wat leven hep op
vast(e) moment(e) om mail/app te checken
> one month off line
> everyday at 9 o’clock offline
> only use chats and chat groups if it is necessary put more effort and energy in real life conversations
> 1 x per uur checken
> ask yourself “do I enjoy doing this?”
> block/delete apps
> reward yourself if you are offline
> don’t bring your phone with you
> go outside, make plans at home
> turn off notification or sound
> turn mobile service off
> check social media less often
These answers clearly paint a picture of conflict and stunted, yet understandable problem-solving. The problem or challenge needs to be understood better. This takes digging deeper into one’s own, unique conflicted consumption and can be done with a big piece of paper, black marker and uncensored brainstorming. Don’t stop unless the page is filled and go wide. You alone would be the expert on the content, and have all the skills you need. Once you are done, look for odd answers and set them apart. With the example of an addiction, there are clearly enjoyable and acceptable stretches that are worth keeping, unless you opt for total abstinence. For instance, reading the news for 1 hour each day is a goal for some, instead of a problem. It allows you to learn about world events, is paperless, and exactly the reason why you bought a large display phone. Or sharing photos and engaging with friends about them is a pleasure to a certain degrees, while browsing randomly around others’ happiness is more a downer. Be clear and specific enough.
These solution attempts also need further attention. Which of those do you own, because you created them yourself and which ones did you read about or see a friend do? Designing Your Life features a wonderful chapter on calibrating your compass towards one’s “True North”. While there is a standard compass with certain expectations for you as to where to head, make sure you know your life and work values well enough to head for a self-defined goal. Also check on your reality — whether you are in the upside-up or upside-down world, i.e. with self-care you are more likely to be in the sunny lands and minimize distortions that don’t serve you. And check who is influencing your compass, tempering with your needle for their own benefit. If you’ve watched the Netflix series “Stranger things”, that would be this.
Task: Draw a compass with N, E, S, and W, and label for each direction what “going the right way”, “veering off” (E & W) and “moving backwards” (S) would mean, if you pursued a socially expected North.
Task: Draw another compass and define your “True North” and label what your life goal and dreams would encompass.
Coming to a wrap here, I am happy to share that I feel I knew just enough, that my attention was sustained just enough during writing this and that I am curious to learn from you where you will take this. Self-care is clearly a daily challenge and life goal, yet it is green energy that you can source freely if you design for it. Loving-kindness meditation, for instance, is a 10-minute meditation that cultivates a benevolent mindset and harvests your acquaintances and friendships to the fullest. I will abstain from sharing the easy list of hacks here, and instead appeal one last time to your innate creativity and expertise on what you need to do. The simplest outcomes don’t come easy, but they definitely bring a pure form of joy that no Veuve Cliquot or 5-star experience can bring.
I hope this blog post was a form of digital happiness for you and provided some insight for designing solutions around distractions.
