In the recent trip to Venice, I saw a striking sight. Of course, I saw a lot: the Ponte de Rialto at dusk, the magnificent glasswork of Murano, the urban landscape on the bell tower of San Giorgio Maggiore, the works of Bosch, Titian and Tintoretto. Lucky me.
However, whenever I take a public motorboat and the waters of Venice answer the London bus, the sights that remain with me are obvious. People around are browsing the screen as they play slither.io or scroll through the Instagram feeds.
There is no doubt that some of them are tired of being obsessed with their city. But on a weekend in the summer, my guess is that most of the tourists are tourists. The public motorboats provide them with a spectacular view of a unique city that is neither easy nor cheap. However, they felt compelled to stay away from the vision they paid to stare at them.
We are fascinated. Our equipment is ready to focus on them by flashing, slamming or even vibrating our skin. They are constantly evolving in order to do so more effectively. As a result, mobile phone users in developed countries now spend about two hours a day on their small blue screens - a big chunk of our leisure time.
Recently, the big technology companies, most notably Apple, have begun to promote new distracting features, such as tools to track your usage or remind you to stop watching YouTube videos. Although popular, these features are half-hearted and slow.
No wonder. Technology companies, especially Facebook and Google, make money by selling your attention to advertisers. The more they get attention, the more they can sell. We can expect them to help us regain control, which is limited.
Therefore, the main responsibility for managing our attention lies in us, without letting tech companies get out of trouble. We can do a lot of things.
The first and simplest principle: If you want to do something for yourself in the future, it's easy; otherwise it's hard.
So, turn off notifications - of course. Make sure your phone automatically resets silent mode every night to mute calls and messages. My phone is silent between 10pm and 7am; more aggressive silence may be better. Set your mobile charging station away from where you sleep (although the London Fire Department says not to charge at night). This is an obvious suggestion, but I can assure you that it works. If you don't need to exert any willpower, your phone will become less distracting; I expect you will take back the set-up time within 24 hours.
Tristan Harris, a former Google designer and founder of the Time Well Spent movement, suggested taking further steps - placing only basic tools such as calendars and cameras on the phone's home screen. He hides icons that completely distract the app: if you want to use Instagram, you can type "Instagram" in the phone's search bar. This is effective because although the search is fast, it requires deliberate effort.
I think my other visitors took pictures from the beginning. Then their attention was revealed: they wanted to post the photos on social media, and then they slipped into the game or news program without thinking. It may be helpful to use Mr. Harris's method.
The second suggestion is to pay attention to your emotional state. When I am on vacation, I sometimes find it easy to forget my phone. Exceptions are helpful: a (small) problem reaches the email; I feel a little anxious, want to respond quickly, want to remind the necessary people, want to see how they respond, suddenly I check every few minutes until I noticed my feelings and caught it.
Third, adapt constantly, because technology companies will definitely. A few months ago, I installed an inbox interceptor, a simple plugin that forced me to transfer from my email inbox by forcing me to click on an extra button. After a while, I noticed the unintended consequences: I encountered a mental disorder at work, so I will come to my treatment by checking the email, I will be blocked by the inbox interceptor, and finally check the social media. The result: distracting attention in a less useful form. I have now uninstalled the blocker.
Read more:
Mobile Phone Repair, Laptop and Tablet Screen Repairs in the UK - Phonerepairer.co.uk
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