For Mental Health Awareness week 2019, I’m doing an experiment…
If you put aside for one moment all the good things that come from having technology available at your fingertips, have you ever thought about whether your phone usage impacts on your mental health?
Work and business needs aside, how much time do you typically spend on yours during the day?
What do you tend to be doing when you are on it?
Do you put yourself under pressure to instantly respond to messages and notifications?
Could your phone activity be a substitute for attention or recognition you’re not getting elsewhere?
I have started to leave mine on ‘silent’ as I find the constant pinging distracting, and I switched off some of the visual notifications a while ago.
But although I strive to sensibly limit my phone use, this weekend I was quite shocked to see what my average screen time and the number of daily pick-ups was during last week!
So this week I’ve decided to experiment with only being on my phone for just two longer sessions a day, and to resist looking at it in between times, just to see what difference it makes.
What about you? Have you got the balance right?
