Too busy to care about your digital habits? Then your life’s in danger.

We’re busy people. Modern life is dizzying. Plans and commitments, meals to prepare, driving, bills to pay, admin for days. Emails to reply to? Yes. Texts awaiting? You betcha.

We don’t.have.time to think about our digital habits. We’re just trying to survive.

I feel this strongly.

In the 1960’s, social scientists and tech experts believed that the proliferation of computers would expand down time, reduce weekly workloads, and usher in more leisure - more hobbies, extra time to “cultivate our minds and improve our environment.” (Joke was on them.)

Fact is, the more we automate, the more we add to busywork and stress. Think: sorting emails, creating new passwords (or searching for current ones), deleting photos on your phones, replying to messages. Or you don’t do these things, they pile up… and your sanity fractures.

Wisdom means interacting well in the space where you find yourself; this lets you thrive instead of flounder. In the early 2000’s, wisdom means being realistic about the digital age and everything it creates for us. It’s here; we live in it. What does it look like to do this well?

Digital wellness people like myself have a simple message, and it’s this:

Your life will not go well if you do not make time and energy to figure out good digital habits… and then put them into practice. It just won’t.

You will become a reactive person - letting the demands of the day and the dings of your phone, the “pressing problems” of the now - dictate what you do. Reality is, the here-now demands are not that pressing, and they are not the main problems of your life. If you spend your time on them, you will waste it.

You will become a superficial person. You will lose your ability to think deeply about things that matter, because you will train your brain and psyche to skim across the surface of many things. You will have neither will nor interest to spend time pondering and reflecting on things the matter - the things that make for a good life.

You will become an anxious, insecure, vain, and jealous person. We look too much at ourselves and compare ourself too much with others. The average person takes nearly 500 selfies a year; this shapes us. The more time you spend on social media, the worst your life outcomes in mental health by all measures.

You will become a person consumed with entertainment and amusement, and this will make you worse. Entertainment and amusement are fine in their place; they are not bad. However, they are not the ingredients of a healthy, fulfilling, flourishing life. They are not the most important thing - or even close to it. (How many people on their deathbeds will say, “I wish I watched more YouTube videos, or posted more TikTok’s”?). Yet our digital habits make us live as if entertainment and amusement were the most important thing. They consume us, and this shapes us.

Our devices are forming us as people. They disciple us into their ways. We give them our unspoken consent to do so when we give them our time, unthinkingly. There are pressing dangers, yes - pornography, predators, sexting - but the subtle ones are actually more insidious and likely more harmful at a widespread level.

Do we want to be reactive, superficial, insecure, jealous people consumed with entertainment and unable to think meaningfully about our lives? Unable to act wisely and well?

We shake ourselves out of the stupor. We are not a cog in the wheel of this modern-life machine, or at least we need not to be. We must refuse to let ourselves be lulled to sleep, to passivity, to letting the best of life pass us by because we are too “busy” to do the work to assess the dangers our digital world poses. This is not a drill.

Get some resources - there are dozens. Do a detox. Reach out if you need help.
We can do this… and we must.

---

If you like this post, please send it along to someone else who may appreciate it! For more content like it, take my free, fun QUIZ, “What’s Your Cell Phone Virtue?”

Or join us at the the susanbarico.com subscriber community, and I’ll send you my quick start guide: “5 steps to less CELL, more SOUL.” Sign up here.

---

You May Also Enjoy: