Don’t let the distractors distract you: Cut the noise.

This post dives into the complex relationship between our increased use of technology and personal health and happiness, encouraging you to think critically about your habits. It’s not just an exploration of problems but a practical post, offering simple exercises to help you regain control in a tech-dominated world. Drawing from sources like Accenture Life Trends and Harvard Business Review, I aim to share how you can empower yourself with informed choices and personal goal setting. If you’re looking for ways to lead a healthier, more balanced life amidst the distractions of technology, this post can be useful to help you cut through the clutter, reclaim your story, happiness, and redefine the role of technology in your life.

Around a decade ago, amidst the chaos of a startup and my all-encompassing self-study spree, I stumbled upon a job listing that threw me off balance. A psychology degree was listed as a requirement for a position in app development. Back then, such roles were geared towards scientists and data experts, not psychology bachelors or enthusiasts like me. After a moment of shock, I swiftly moved on, busy with the search for something else.

But good questions always stick with you so it wasn’t that long that I realised why it was. Psychologists are trained to understand the human brain, and by understanding it, that knowledge could help and deliver app consumption. Back then it was clicks, today is scroll. I’d say it will always be feeding with your behaviour, a behaviour that can be measured, transformed on data and then used so you end up buying something somewhere. Design was impacted so users developed an addiction of adding mobile phone time to their daily habits… with no limits.

And when your goal, business wise, has only money on the cocktail, at all costs all in… Part of that is nocive impact on end users and society.

We are overexposed to overusing media and digital. In digital marketing, we are encouraged to go faster, quicker, improve, challenge the status quo on a daily basis… but we are not protagonists of our own stories but objects, resources, assets… and when you lose perspective on what’s going on… sh-t happens.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean progress and tech evolution are bad. They’re not as far as you don’t miss the right questions. They’re not that bad as far as you don’t miss your values and keep them above the noise, including propaganda and buzzwords. You think I’m overreacting? I prefer to stay ahead of where the finger is pointing, but who owns the finger directing my attention. I can’t help but to understand the whole package—the finger, the pointed, and who owns it. Or, in simpler terms: who’s paying for it.

Do you pay for using social media? Do you cash or subscribe to every post you read? If not, who is? And why? More often than you might think, and I’m being extremely conservative here, YOU are the means. Today, in tech, whenever you are using something you haven’t directly paid for… You pay with what you are. You are paying with who you are. You pay with what you are going to pay. Same applies to your data, everything and anything people seem to be willing to give away.

Accenture Life Trends 2024. Not technology but life.

1 in 6 people said they are switching to less advanced tech solutions, like dumb phones to control the amount of time they spend with technology.

37% say it’s more important than ever to apply critical thinking regarding what technology they use and how.

Harvard Business Review article by Professor Cristopher Barnes

It is clear that you can squeeze in more work hours if you sleep less. But remember that the quality of your work—and your leadership—inevitably declines as you do so, often in ways that are invisible to you.

How do they relate to each other?

I’m just sharing a kind of “recent” example of what I happen to find while scrolling. On the one hand you have friction in media consumption and phone use. On the other unhealthy habits that lead to an unhealthy, nocive path with an impact of how misjudging urgent can damage what’s important and what’s gonna help you in the long run.

A not so recent documentary on spy and counterspy showed an ex spy saying: we couldn’t believe that now everyone will willingly have a spy on them 24/7. Sadly I haven’t found the documentary just yet, I promise I’ll edit the post if I ever find it.

So, how to cut through it then? Can you think of any ideas? Is it worthy? If you think it is not, stop reading. If it might be, and you have any ideas, put them into practice, test them. I’d love to hear about your experience.

If you’re slightly curious about my learnt lessons, here are just a few:

Start by setting yourself apart, in silence, paper and anything you can use to write and answer this questions down:

1. Are you happy? -Yes or No.
2. What is good for you? Brainstorm.
3. What makes you better? Brainstorm.

Use that insight from within your self awareness and make a plan. I don’t mean a useless 100 slides presentation. I mean writing down clear actions you want to put into practice.

Set goals and experiments.

If you are not used to this kind of hygienic exercise and you feel overwhelmed just see a simplified plan below:

“Tomorrow I will check how much time I waste on my phone”.

“Next day I will use that time to read a good book”.

“Next day I will see what’s the right mix of time wasting and investing time in my own good”.

If you are already into the habit of critical thinking about how much time you waste and taking action to reduce it, think a bit ahead and set goals to be achieved in 12 months time… then break them into  6 months time, 3 months time, monthly, and experiment combinations to try for a few days.

It’s an interesting exercise that allows you to envision where you want to be in a year time and then articulate how to adjust your daily routine to work towards that goal.

With all that and a bit of time and experience you can go back to that piece of paper, I’d say a notebook, and ask yourself:

Are you happier?

Are you better?

No? If you’ve done all this effort you know it’s worth trying and you should also know that anything worthy sometimes takes a few tries. You won’t get that amazing burger grilled perfectly on the first go. But you eventually will get there.

Yes? I’ll be very happy for you! I’d say you are very likely to see some good points, some improvement, little or not it’s all important to you as you are grabbing your own story, your own personal plan. Your own happiness.

Want a few more ideas and go crazy?

1. Turn off all notifications on your phone.
2. Cherry pick who you wanna pay attention to on social media or in any digital format. Not the time waster viral content or influencer. I mean make an informed decision of the content or people who really share something valuable, that makes you good. Block the rest. 
3. Establish specific times to look at your phone or to NOT look at your phone. Do check your phone when you decide you want to instead of anytime anywhere.
4. Get a paper book. Sci fi, literature, a novel… pick your favourite and enjoy.
5. Talk to someone without your phone on the table. Please don’t let your “smart watch” be smarter than you and interrupt a good conversation! Have a good laugh! Have a challenging discussion!
6. Go for a stroll. No headphones unless you only listen to that cool podcast or energising music. No notifications. If due to safety you need to carry your phone with you, it’s ok, but I hope you get my point. Listen to whatever is around you. Reactivate your senses and connect with them and your centralised control rooms… stomach, brains, chest, soul.

Enjoy. You are not the tool, technology is.

Noise is not only about phone addiction. It’s present and around us in a plethora of formats.

Can you think of any? Let me know. I might even dare to share more examples.

Take action. Cut the noise.

Breath. Think. Smile.