Addicted to social media? Here's how you can take a step back

This might seem ironic since you are reading this on an electronic medium.

It all started with one step.

The iPhone has a very interesting feature. If you click on settings > battery, it tells you the exact time you are spending on every single feature of the phone. I discovered I was spending in excess of an hour on WhatsApp. WHAT? How was this possible?

The answer is simple. If you are awake 18 hours a day, and spend even four minutes an hour chatting, the app takes up 72 minutes of your time. Similarly, another hour went into social media (Facebook) and professional websites. I am not an active user of Twitter or Instagram and am too old to be on Snapchat or Imo or to chase elusive characters on Pokemon. Yet, the posting, forwarding, liking, commenting and messaging was taking up valuable waking time.

The nagging question was— am I alone?

I started asking people. Would they be open to disconnecting from WhatsApp or any other social media platform for a month? The answer was pretty much a loud and definitive no. I started observing co-passengers on a plane. By default, everyone was immersed in either sleep or in a screen. During my evening walk, I started observed that my fellow runners had distinctive white wires dangling from their ears. In coffee shops, groups of friends were on their respective phones. I realised I was not alone in being addicted to a screen.

So here’s what I tried.

The first set of apps to go were the social apps. Facebook and LinkedIn were deactivated.

Here's what happened

The myth of fatigue relief: Once the proposal I was working on was sent on its way, my brain would seek a mental break. The default break was to fire up my browser and type out “f” and “a” before realising that I had deactivated my account. Very gently, I would have to go back to the empty new tab.

Loss of identifying the controllable versus controllable:  Most of the news was overwhelmingly negative. How did an uncontrollable event of a TV anchor ejecting a police commissioner matter to me? For that matter, how did the debate on politicising caste, river, border disputes energise me for tasks at hand?

Loss of savouring: If I heard good or bad news, I simply had to share it. Even worse, I had to assign a judgement of good or bad to it, in line with my values and beliefs. The good news was no longer about celebrating the moment, the effort or the individual.

Checking out who has checked me out and getting a thrill from how many people viewed my posts somehow scored over checking out the latest knowledge-laden posts from The Economist, McKinsey and Pulse.

Starting the technology diet

In my case, the culprit was the messenger apps. The diet plan was simple.

— Look at messenger apps once an hour.

— Avoid reading and responding to group messages.

— Reply only to clients and close family and only to messages directed towards me.

Guess what! My WhatsApp time is now down to ten minutes a day. I have freed up in excess of an hour.

My two-step checklist

1. Have I completed my daily to-do list? Can I spend twenty minutes on something else? This can include a power nap, a quick meditation or maybe listening to music, which I had completely stopped.

2. Make it an absolute pain to use. Absolutely do not check social platforms more than once an hour. Do not tick the “keep me signed in feature”. Hide the apps on your phone within a folder which goes into another folder. Research shows the best way to not do something is to add layers of work.

So what goes on social media?

The Greater Good Science Center, University of California, Berkeley runs a fabulous site with some great columns and posts. Below each post they have a quick survey, which I have reproduced below. This became a meaningful guide and inspiration.

1. Would I pay to share it? LinkedIn has a fabulous feature. It restricts the number of InMails that you can send. If you wish to send more InMails, then you need to purchase them.

I found my behaviour rather amusing. A post was important enough to post, but only if it was free. The importance faded if I had to pay for it. So I asked myself this. If the social platform charged me Rs 10 for a post, would I pay up? If the social platform started charging, let’s say Rs 1,000 for every hundred likes, would I still use it? If the post is not worth Rs 10 for an individual, why am I posting it?

2. Does it add value to my work, family, finance, and community? Most of my posts failed this test. Posting or responding to political commentaries added no value and all it did was bind everyone to their original held positions. A post celebrating an act of kindness of someone feeding stray dogs every day for twelve years evoked more conversation on the merits and demerits of stray dogs. Quite the reverse of what I had anticipated.

3. Am I ridiculing someone however loathsome his or her acts might be? It’s hardly courageous or humorous to “troll” someone. By the way, when did a bully metamorphose into a troll? Seen through this lens, a lot of my posts seemed rather cowardly.

So what did my little experiment achieve?

The only meaningful post that I could find was the discussion on the sheer joy of dunking a Parle-G in a cuppa. The science of Parle–G holds a universal truth worthy of consideration by the Nobel Committee, I tell you.

Besides these, a few myths got busted.

Fear of missing out (FOMO) retreated into the background. The diet seems to work. I am down to twelve minutes on WhatsApp. My fingers don’t twitch as much. My brain is getting used to not being connected.

Every now and then I need to remind myself that there is absolutely nothing that I missed out. If it is important, they will call, email or text me. If it is important.

The myth of connectedness got busted. Here’s the kicker. The number of people who asked me if I had disconnected could be counted on the fingers of my hands. Correction. My left hand. Actually, a more accurate representation would be the fingers on my left hand situated to the right of the index finger.

The number of people who asked why was even less. Note to self— cherish and nurture those connections.

Less is more. Literally! I find myself with more time for myself. Bedside books are getting read. E-mails are being responded to quicker. I can harness the energising power of serenity, stillness and even solitude. People who matter get the time and priority that they truly need when they need it. Websites and newsletters that are important get priority.

So another experiment starts later this week. When I go on a holiday, I will be deleting all the messenger apps on my phone. The final step in engaging with the fear of missing out. Let’s see how that works out.

Meanwhile, we will take a break for the next few weeks, unless I find news that I would be willing to pay for you to hear from me. See you a bit after Diwali.

The author is the Founder of The Positivity Company, where he helps business leaders become more positive and productive. Birender can be reached on birender.ahluwalia@gmail.com.