14 / 24
Slaves
to our
smartphones
igital devices have revolution-
ized our lives in countless ways,
freeing us from office cubicles
and placing a vast world of information
at our fingertips. But is hyper-connec-
tivity a blessing or a curse? A growing
choir of experts are voicing the opinion
that staying wired 24/7 doesn’t make us
more productive – much less happier.
It’s becoming harder to distinguish
between ‘on-time’ and ‘off-time’, ar-
gues
Leslie Perlow
in her book
Sleep-
ing with Your Smartphone
. The Harvard
Business School professor laments that
we are caught in a “vicious cycle of re-
sponsiveness”, obsessively checking
our messages and allowing work to in-
vade the home.
Even during our downtime, we are
lured back into the world of work by
insistent ringtones and message alerts.
We can’t resist sneaking a peek at our
smartphone whenever it beckons, even
in the middle of a family dinner. We
are never fully ‘off’ or relaxed, which
is bad for our relationships, our mental
health and ultimately also for business.
The dark side of the internet
Perlow conducted an experiment with
a group of workaholics at Boston Con-
sulting Group and found that when
they made a concerted effort to dis-
connect from their digital devices for a
few agreed hours every week, the entire
group became more productive. “When
D
Text:
Silja Kudel
Photo:
Matti Immonen
Has the servant become the master? Are digital
devices forcing us to stay ‘always on’ at the
cost of our mental health and productivity?
Learn to spot the early warning signs of digital
burnout before it’s too late.
…the calming tactile
experience of holding the
paper is also a great way of
thwarting digital burnout.
• Read the newspaper in-depth from cover to cover.
• Set an internet curfew: make a pact not to surf after eight in the evening
• Don’t answer work mails from home late in the evening.
• Don’t jump to respond to every notification. If you’re enjoying a
conversation with someone, switch to mute.
• Schedule an hour each day for handling email correspondence.
Don’t keep checking your messages every five minutes.
• Never sleep with your phone. The blue light emitted by devices suppresses
the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin, resulting in lower quality sleep.
Sources:
Perlow, Leslie A: Sleeping with Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7
Habit and Change the Way You Work, Harvard Business Review press, 2012
Salmela-Aro, K., Upadyaya, K., Hakkarainen, K., Lonka, K. & Alho, K.: The Dark
Side of Internet Use: Two Longitudinal Studies of Excessive Internet Use, Depressive
Symptoms, School Burnout and Engagement Among Finnish Early and Late Adolescents.
Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 2016
Tips for
digital detoxing
gage and if it begins to steal too much
time from school, work or sleep,” says
Salmela-Aro.
Print books thrive,
Twitter stumbles
Certain recent trends suggest that peo-
ple are suffering from a growing degree
of ‘technology fatigue’ and are seeking
out more traditional, tactile experienc-
es. Last year saw a revival in tradition-
al publishing, with print books sales in
the US and UK rising for the first time
in four years, while e-books meanwhile
suffered a decline.
Another interesting development is
that Twitter’s user growth plummeted
sharply last year, perhaps suggesting
that people are no longer quite so ex-
cited about exchanging bite-size com-
mentaries with online strangers.
Readers hungry for real news are
more likely to find satisfaction read-
ing the daily newspaper. Not only do
newspapers contain more detailed in-
formation, but they also cover a broad-
er range of topics, from politics and fi-
nance to sports and culture. The calm-
ing tactile experience of holding the pa-
per is also a great way of thwarting dig-
ital burnout.
In any case, as digital technology in-
evitably comes to play an increasingly
dominant role in our lives, it is up to all
of us to consider whether it might be
time to switch off our smartphones and
pick up the newspaper for the benefit of
our health and work-life balance. The
world won’t end if we go offline from
time to time. Really.
people work together to create ‘pre-
dictable time off,’ people, teams, and
ultimately the organization all stand to
benefit,” she writes.
At worst, hyper-connectivity can
lead to a condition known as ‘digi-
tal burnout’, a specific type of burnout
triggered by digital devices. It has the
same symptoms as work-related burn-
out, such as loss of motivation, emo-
tional exhaustion, sleep disturbances,
lowered immunity and depression.
But when can we begin to suspect
that internet addiction might be becom-
ing a problem? “When it becomes dif-
ficult for you to quit and when it starts
consuming more time than you origi-
nally planned,” says Professor
Katarii-
na Salmela-Aro
, co-author of
Mind
the Gap
, a study examining the dark
side of internet usage among Finnish
adolescents.
The study found a correlation to ex-
ist between excessive internet usage,
school burnout and depression, yet far
from demonizing the internet, Salmela-
Aro argues that schools should active-
ly encourage pupils to use their digital
competencies in schoolwork.
“We found that students with very
high digital competence often feel cyn-
ical towards school, as they’re not al-
lowed to use those competencies in the
classroom. They then disengage and
invest all their time and effort into the
digital world outside school.”
But how much internet usage is too
much: when do we know it’s time to
switch off? “It’s difficult to say, as it
depends on the person. But it’s prob-
lematic if you find it difficult to disen-
UPM
NEWS
14