The Devil is in the Details: How Data Offers Answers

Image Source: Generated by Copilot

For the first time in my life, I tried something new to think more clearly and gain time. I attempted to complete a digital detox. As I am reading “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention – How to Think Deeply Again,” by Johann Hari, I’ve been challenged to change my perspective on attention, focus, and thinking deeply. So, I chose to give up the app Facebook Messenger for five days for this digital detox.

Although I admittedly broke this digital detox several times during the five days, I felt a newfound sense of calm, clarity, and focus, whether it was more energy after I ate lunch at the office, or an increase in joy from focused time spent at the gym, not checking my phone in between sets.

I’m going to explain two key lessons this experiment taught me, and why I recommend that anyone try doing one to improve their relationship with technology and social media.

Creating Your Own Sunshine

Almost all my days typically start with a blaring alarm, light flooding into my room, and rolling over to check messages I have from my friends. From a literal perspective, changing this routine to have my phone out of arm’s reach forced me to get up, turn the alarm off, and get ready for the day.  

The three out of five days of this experiment that I didn’t check Facebook Messenger in the morning resulted in:

• Getting to work earlier.
• Having fewer headaches from screen time after I immediately woke up.
• Increased focus while building a to-do list.
  
  
  

Image Source: Created by Author

Image Source: Created by Author

As seen in the two graphs pictured above, I checked Facebook Messenger on the second and the fifth day in the morning during this digital detox. Both mornings, I arrived at work around 9 am instead of 8:30 am and felt more fatigued earlier in the day.



Johann Hari’s conversation with Google and Facebook data strategists about Send the Sunshine, an app to cure seasonal depression, was built on the belief that to shape behavior, you make sure users get hearts and likes right away.



The immediacy of this dopamine is a psychological motivator for me to check Facebook Messenger. Breaking away from it was one of the best habits I could consider building at the start of each day.

The Invisible Force Pulling the Puppet Strings

Social media algorithms are complex data formulas that keep us on our screens and create attention atrophy. This article from Science News Today explains the influence of algorithms well:

“Algorithms are designed to keep you scrolling. They do this by identifying patterns in the content you engage with most – be it cat videos, political memes, or fitness tips, and showing you more of the same.”

Image Source: Science News Today

Although this isn’t directly applicable to my intrinsic motivation to check Facebook Messenger, explore pages on apps like Instagram and TikTok do this with their algorithms to keep me on their apps in an unproductive way.

Setting app screen time limits, or using any of these third-party apps to help manage your digital wellbeing, have been great tactics for me to test and implement after this digital detox.

If you are interested in doing a digital detox, I highly recommend you consider a short-term one. You’ll learn how to create sunshine and better understand how to not let algorithms pull your strings, making you a helpless puppet to these apps.