Taking back control

During a recent conversation with some friends, we stumbled across the topic of social media and the much talked about court case against the social media giant Meta, where an American Court found that the platform caused personal injury, and contributed to mental health challenges, experienced by a young user who was subsequently awarded substantial compensation.

We started sharing with each other how we find ourselves constantly drawn to our phones where we access these forums, checking it constantly even when we know we did not hear a notification, how it’s the first thing we engage with when we wake up and the last thing we check before we go to sleep.

Sharing our stories with one another we were shocked to realize (and admit) how integrated our lives have become with our smart devices. Most of us don’t have physical alarm clocks, home alarm remotes, diaries or even photo albums. Our lives exist on smart devices and phones.

We all know there are numerous authors, scientists and psychologist warning us against the dangerous and addictive nature of our digital devices. In his book, "The Anxious Generation – how the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness", acclaimed social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt explores some of the harrowing mental health risks associated with the use of social media and why we have seen a steep global rise of teen suicide, crippling anxiety, depression and other mental health issues amongst young adults and children since 2010. During our conversation we were even able to share facts, statistics and studies with each other. But still we had to admit, that despite knowing all this, most of us are addicted to our smart devices.

This led us to ask each other, despite everything we know, why do we still find ourselves unable to disengage from our devices. We had all the usual answers like everything we need our devices for in our day-to-day lives, that we use it to de-stress, that it is what connects us to other people etc. But the actual truth is that we are in some manner or form unable to disengage from our phones without feeling uneasy or anxious after a while. Making conscious decisions to break this habit of constantly being on your phone is hard and even inconvenient. I read a post the other day that resonated with me when it said that “When the phone was bound by a cord – humanity was free”.

These discussions led us to challenge ourselves to make more conscious decisions regarding our smart devices and the control it has over our day. I would like to invite you to make some changes with me – whether it being a break from social media, or just the conscious decision to put the phone down for certain periods of our day.

Ianthè Biggs | Conveyancer

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