Corona virus: How do you get rid of "digital toxins" during the epidemic crisis?

By:

Mary Holland

In light of the rules of social distancing, due to the epidemic outbreak of the new Corona virus, and with the negative impact that long hours of isolation have on our minds, our mobile phones have become an invaluable haven for us.

So it's no surprise that views of the live broadcast feature on the "Instagram" application doubled in just a week, and that those in charge of the "Facebook" site recorded a 70 percent increase in group video calls via the "Messenger" application, and that the rate of The use of "WhatsApp" increased by 40 percent.

Our use of the mobile phone is "a common mechanism for dealing with the unknown" that we currently face, says Doreen Dugen-Maggie, a psychologist based in Oregon, USA, who previously wrote a book on ways to balance life and technology. "We continue to use our digital devices with the news we receive through them, hoping that this will help ease our anxiety," she adds.

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Before going into this conversation, I should go back to a few weeks before the Corona epidemic crisis hit New York City, in which I live. At that time, I decided to delete the Instagram app from my phone, as I was tired of browsing through the accounts of users of this application, while I was standing absent-mindedly in line for those wanting to pay at the grocery store, or waiting for the subway. A week after I took this step, I realized that I wasn't holding my mobile phone as often as before, which gave me a strange sense of freedom.

After that, lockdown measures were imposed. I felt completely isolated from the world, and felt an urgent need to see how others dealt with the situation created by the outbreak of the epidemic. So I decided to bring Instagram back to life. This time around, the app didn't seem to be as much of a time-waster as it did before, but rather has more useful purposes. It even seemed as if preoccupation with the phone had become acceptable, given that I was no longer able to communicate with others effectively.

At that time, I wanted to connect with my friends around the world, to find out how they are dealing with the quarantine issue. I sought advice from celebrity chefs on how to use leftovers, and I also wanted information about brands that produce and donate face masks as well.

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But the moment I finally felt that my wandering around the corners of “Instagram” was bringing me real benefits, I suddenly discovered that this was not true of its launch. In the second week of the lockdown period, I found that whenever I grabbed my phone to take advantage of what was posted on Instagram, I was bombarded with an endless barrage of anxiety-inducing news notifications.

I am not alone in this regard, as many of us are concerned that we spend too much time in front of the screens of our phones, especially after we have become increasingly more connected to them, due to our cut off from the world and due to our feeling of boredom, and also because using them has now become a necessity to deal with the crisis current.

Dogin-Maggie believes that this is a problem, because the feelings of anxiety that we experience as a result of our constant use of phones and modern electronic devices "nullify any positive effects", represented in the fact that these devices keep us informed of the developments taking place around us.

But getting away from devices like this is not as easy as turning them off. When all our affairs become linked to our mobile phones as it is now, and our days revolve around their screens as never before; We have a question about how in this atmosphere we can reduce our feelings of anxiety due to the use of digital devices.

Drawing Clear Boundaries

Although we all realize that we use our smartphones now for a longer time than we would like to do, it is difficult to set limits for this matter, at a time when the screens of our digital devices have become our means of communication with others on the one hand, and the method in which we On the other hand, we keep our spirits high.

Perhaps we should consider the opinion of Tanya Godin, founder of the Time to Log Off movement, which is based in Britain, and aims to “detox digital” or in other words reduce excessive attachment to electronic devices. “Everyone is concerned about our cell phone life nowadays,” she says. “Every Sunday (when everyone on their phone screen is looking at Apple's iPhone usage report), I see tons of tweets and comments. , through which people on social media platforms express their dismay at discovering that they use the phone at an average of 12 hours a day.

It is clear that the current situation is very different. But I still see that a lot of the principles (that were applicable to the pre-pandemic period in this matter) are still applicable" now, Goodwin adds.

Among what Goodwin suggests to reduce the anxiety caused by our use of digital devices is to set strict boundaries between using them for beneficial purposes and using them in a way that has negative effects. From this point of view, there is no harm in allocating time to browse social networking sites, as long as it is useful, such as watching video clips of exercise exercises, or following lessons in baking pastries, for example, or remote roaming in the corridors of museums.

But if we browse these platforms, just because we feel bored or anxious, it will not bring us any benefits, says Goodwin. The puzzling thing is that grabbing the phone to check the latest news produces mixed effects, says the founder of the “Time to Log” movement Ove," which indicates that "people usually say that they want to reassure themselves (in this way), but this has become a real problem, and it exacerbates feelings of anxiety as well."

However, despite our tireless attempts to reduce feelings of anxiety caused by the use of digital devices, by setting limits on this matter and acquiring new habits in terms of lifestyle, it must be recognized that promoting healthy practices in this regard is now more difficult than before, after The personal and professional lives of each of us suddenly blended together, becoming more like a single mould.

Goodwin recommends that people formulate two systems for dealing with electronic devices, one for the morning and one for the afternoon. She says that what helps to differentiate between work time and leisure time is that one allocates different electronic devices for each of them. For example, "makes the laptop dedicated to work purposes, and dedicates the smartphone to entertainment. Which means that you will have to put one of them aside when you use the other."

Looking for quality, not quantity

Dogen-Maggie suggests that when we browse social networking sites, we search for meaningful and attractive content rather than over-consuming whatever content is available on it. Fortunately, during the current pandemic, useful content is more available on these sites than ever before.

There are plenty of other high-quality content out there right now, including chef Alison Roman, who also writes cookbooks. Roman offers cooking recipes and useful videos in this regard, on social networking sites. The number of her followers on Instagram is more than half a million followers, while their number on Twitter has reached 400,000.

For months, Roman has been providing helpful recipe advice on The New York Times YouTube channel. But she recently resorted to Instagram, to provide instructions for alternatives that you can use if you do not have - due to quarantine measures - the original ingredients required to prepare your favorite meal.

Although Roman is monitoring increased interaction at the present time with her various accounts on social media platforms, she is still not sure whether this is due to her growing popularity among surfers, or to a sudden interest shown by people in cooking in the midst of the epidemic crisis.

"More people are cooking and asking questions about it," she says. The famous chef invited her followers on Instagram and Twitter to ask her about whatever they like.

Don't stay connected to the Internet

On the other hand, video calls, which are made through an application such as Zoom, now seem to rule our entire lives, in light of the variety of purposes for which they are used, from holding meetings Work, to exercise and remote gatherings, to even online dinners.

However, there is real wear and tear that comes from engaging in contacts of this kind. In order for one to reduce the negative effects of feelings of anxiety that he experiences due to the use of digital devices, it is important not to forget that there are other methods that enable him to communicate with others.

Here, says Tanya Godin: “You have to think about some alternatives. Voice calls, for example, are still available. A phone conversation between two people is a much richer experience than a conversation in which you are shouting at 10 people simultaneously (on the Zoom application). )". "We can do a lot of things without having to use digital devices," she adds.

We can break free from the captivity of the mobile phone, by subscribing to a print magazine, for example, or immersed in solving a traditional puzzle, which does not require the use of digital devices. A third option is to read books. In this regard, Goodwin notes that she has seen "many people who talk about a boom in book sales, thanks to which their readers can escape from their reality, those books that do not deal with epidemics in any way, but rather include interesting stories, in which one can immerse themselves." so intensely that he forgets the circumstances around him.

It can be seen in some libraries the positive effect of people devoting more time to reading. Among them is Box R Magic in Brooklyn, New York, whose sales have increased dramatically over the past few weeks. Our highest annual sales. Kaleri notes that this is due to the increasing number of books that people read on the one hand, and that e-commerce and retail companies, such as Amazon, have made shipping books sold through them a priority at the present time, on the other hand.

For my part, last weekend I decided to take two hours out of my day to lie on the couch and finish a novel. So I turned off my phone and allowed myself to be transported to a fantasy world in which there is no epidemic, despite the ambulance sirens that kept ringing near my house. That night, before I could send a few texts, I blocked access to all the apps on my phone for 12 hours, then turned off the phone itself, and dumped it in another room.

I felt the same sense of freedom that I had when I deleted Instagram a few weeks ago. I also realized, surprisingly, that although I can't control myself much at the moment in the midst of a pandemic, I can at least turn my phone off and walk away from its screen.