How to Not Drown in Your Smartphone
With all the multiple stories we receive every day on our devices, we have at least three options, three ways to express our digital freedom.
Float
We can float on the news from one sensation to another. There are no strings attached. We are free to skip the results of the US elections, ignore the highlights of a football game, reread for the umpteenth time, without realizing it, the shocking statistics on COVID-19, and sneer at the latest posts of an influencer in tears because of the fiasco of her birthday party. Surfing on the net never killed anyone anyway.
Since long before Internet 2.0 and its social media, it’s not a bad hobby nor a lousy tactic to calm down our Fear of Missing Out. But sometimes surfing doesn’t tell the whole story. We often find ourselves quickly swept away by the waves of unwanted content after a few scrolls. They are so compelling; they must be designed to rob us of our most precious hours. And after each surfing session, we wonder if we were the surfer or just the board.
Dive
But we shouldn’t complain too much because we also have the option to dive. Dive straight into the dirty water of our issues. Immerse ourselves in the deep and ice-cold river of our old taboos in the hope of coming out converted. In this way, we give more time to the stories that matter most to us. More time on the real meaning of these election results. More attention to the chart that is trying to demonstrate that the second wave of the pandemic is no longer a rendezvous and that we are already well in it. We can take more interest in the score and the highlight of the sports game because we want to review its enjoyable play. Give more empathy to this influencer whose publications speak to us and inspire us to be vulnerable.
Answer the call to “dive deep.” The expression has become almost a suitcase word. We used to go on the net to surf; now we go to “deep-dive. “ Many podcasts, interviews, documentaries invite us to slow down the rhythm of our daily life and take time to think. They propose to go deep into social matters for a better understanding of our world. True, these deep dives are not always as deep as they promise. Some of them only go below the surface, with the head but not the full body immersed. But others lead us to go further, to get to the core of the problems. In those cases, we are like divers exploring the underwater life of the eddies, their mechanisms, and underlying causes.
Swim Against the Current
However, to dive or to float is not the question. As if our “social dilemma” was not complicated enough, there is a third way. That is to swim against the mainstream. To change spots and perspectives. To stop swimming in the same overcrowded flows of our social media. By doing so, we create time and desire to explore other streams. To see the ocean from the other side. Then we realize how small our part of the world is and come out of it humbled, transformed.
We can go outside. Leave our bubble. Zoom out. Drop out, just for a bit or for longer. We can look at everything we have neglected. Participate in the conversations that we have ignored for too long. To stop looking out of Instagram and TikTok because the tiny piece of sky that these windows give us to see seems too blue to be true.
Every morning that we open our curtains to look at the world, we have a world of data and stories within reach of our curiosity. Is it a world to see, a world to explore, or a world to challenge and transform?
We are free to decide. At least, every time we open our phones, it is an illusion that we want to hold on to.
