Technology, jealousy and not taking your phone to bed
There's a feeling I get sometimes. It's a kind of jealousy, focused particularly on people doing things that are undoubtedly good for them, in a kind of annoying way. Annoying for me, that is - they're doing nothing annoying except looking after themselves. And under that annoyance, I wish I was doing it.
They're doing kind of thing that really I know it would be good for me to do... but it doesn't seem fun, or maybe I just haven't got to it... or something.
I used to get this feeling A LOT. But after seven years or so of being in this coaching business, and doing a whole lot of work on myself in the meantime, mostly it doesn't happen any more. In fact, it occurs to me as I write this, that to you, I may in fact be that annoying person for you, with my annoying blogging and podcasting and morning routine and that kind of thing.
If so, I'm sorry. But also, you should probably just do the thing. Just like I should have.
This feeling came on me five years or so ago when I was delivering a workshop for someone - a group of young leaders, I think; maybe a large insurance company - with my friend Nicole. I stayed at her house overnight so that we could drive together for an early start in the morning. And as I went to the bathroom or to brush my teeth, I saw something strange.
Plugged in outside of Nicole and her husband's bedroom, were their mobile phones.
Oh how annoying.
How good for them.
They must talk to each other.
They might sleep well.
They might not have that anxious feeling when they check Twitter first thing in the morning.
How annoying.
Well, five years or so later, I've finally created a comparable habit. And it took a complete accident.
When we moved into our new house, the plugs by the bed didn't have enough sockets for charging our phones (we hadn't yet set up the complex network of extension cables that we had in our flat). And so we plugged our phones in on the other side of the room, four or five yards from the bed.
And when we settled in, we have kept them there. I have very occasional annoyances, like when I want to make a note of a good thought, or want to look something up. But they are nothing compared to the benefit of knowing I am safe from my phone overnight.
I know the risks of technology. So I know this is important. I know how it can steal my attention, and how much of the most influential technology is designed to make us more and more outraged.
And so this space opened up by not having my phone by my bed is not nothing. And I've noticed myself shifting behaviour further.
Indeed, I often don't pick it up in the morning when I go to get my daughter after she has woken up, meaning I'm without my phone for the first few hour of being awake in the week, and several hours at the weekend. (If you're having an incredulous feeling, or feeling unsettled or unsafe by the idea of not having your phone with you for that long... have a think about that.)
Not having my phone around me when I'm with my daughter is important. I've noticed already the way that, aged two, she knows how important the phones are to us. She's captivated by them. She wants to hold them, and looking at pictures on them is a) one of her favourite activities, and b) something that makes her apoplectic if we stop it when she wants to carry on.
Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist who studies our morality, has in recent yearsbeen drawn into work on the mental health of young people and the effects of technology. His work makes me constantly alert to the impact that technology can have, particularly on young people. He says almost all of his MBA students check their phone before they go to the bathroom in the morning. I don't doubt he's right. I used to.
The undeniable addictive nature of technology is worth thinking about when it comes to young people. We prohibit other addictive things - alcohol, cigarrettes, gambling - for young people, while their brains are still forming... Almost no one (sensible) thinks that making it legal for 10 year olds to gamble or smoke or drink is a good idea. And yet we hand out smartphones to them, sometimes at ages even younger than that.
Haidt has no doubt that increases in suicide attempts by young people in the US, for example, particularly among young girls, are down to the impact of smartphones and social media.
And so these little impulses of jealousy can be important. They might be pointing at something that affects not only you but the people around you. Notice them. Maybe make a change.
And be aware that the technology we use affects us.
Make sure you use it, and not the other way around.
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.
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