In an increasingly digital world, it can be difficult to “switch off” from your laptop or phone. Luckily, technology may be able to provide some helpful solutions.
- Use “out of hours” on your email service
Whilst it may seem like a feature which is designed to inform recipients of your emails, enabling “out of hours” on your emails can increase your digital wellbeing by setting consistent boundaries and muting notifications of emails if you still want to use your phone but without feeling compelled to respond to colleagues.
2. Deleting apps for a while
If you feel like opening your applications in a certain order every single day has become more familiar than you would like, then deleting some of these applications, even for just a short period can be a great way of increasing your digital wellbeing. You can then utilise this time to find alternatives which offer the same functions but are less appealing. The number of applications on your phone can have positive impacts on other areas of your digital experience such as the number of notifications that you receive.
3. Use a blue light filter
Whilst some phones may have a version of this activated as a default setting, it is always worth checking that the blue light filter more commonly known as “night mode” or “night shift” on iOS. Blue light filters allow you to work on your screens and receive the benefits of digital technology whilst reducing the impact of things like eye strain late into the evening. This can be ideal if you are going to be looking at your laptop for a while to catch up on a lecture or write an essay. By activating the blue light filter, you can also establish a pattern of behaviour about when you will begin to turn off your technology and rest to prepare for a new day.
4. Use screen time or time-out features on applications
If your phone offers a way in which you can track how often you use each application or even allows you to block access to an application for a certain number of hours after you first opened it, this can be a great way of increasing your digital wellbeing.
Recently, social media platform Tiktok has introduced a feature which reminds users to take breaks after using the application for a period of time. Having the self-motivation to “disconnect” from the online world where so much is happening at all times can be difficult so using features such as “time out” which are built into your phone offer an easy way to do so automatically without having to feel like you are missing out on anything.
In this digital world, it can be difficult to disconnect but there are ways to build it into your habits or even let the technology do it for you to improve your digital wellbeing.
Featured Image Credit: Pexels
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