The more I talk to people about their relationship to their tech, the greater sense of belonging I feel. For most people, every time they see someone reach for their phone there’s a bell that goes off in the mind that creates an urge to grab their phone. Every time they’re slowing down or waiting anywhere, the idea or urge to check the phone arises. Like an addiction, I know this is unhealthy and yet with all my mindfulness and with all the techniques out there, I struggle with this too. At last I’m beginning to understand what this is all about and what to do about it.
Why Are We So Addicted to Our Phones?
There are many theories why most people today feel this obsessive connection with their phones. Some say it’s an addiction and explain it neurologically as a surge of dopamine that pulls us toward an object like drugs or alcohol. Others describe it closer to an anxiety disorder where there’s this FOMO (fear of missing out) effect and so we feel this obsessive need to check our messages, social media, and news.
How to handle the fear of missing out:
The Dangerous Desire to Keep Up with Everything
I can see credibility in all of these theories, but for me, I see it as a current that I’m caught in where there are so many avenues of messages coming in now (email, text, social media, and all the app notifications) that if I don’t check it frequently, I’m going to be buried in a stockpile of messages to sift through for urgency and importance. As a result, my brain quickly makes the decision: “Oh, blinking light, you should check it.” There’s a sense that if I just let it go for a while, I simply won’t be able to keep up, thus the acronym FOKU (fear of keeping up). The reality is, over 80% of the time (or more maybe), the message is not something that needs to be responded to in that moment—it’s not urgent. It’s also not something that would have mattered if I missed it. However, the brain says, “If I can just knock it out right now, I’ll curb the stockpile.” There are a lot of efficiency theories that say, if you can get something done in under two minutes just get it done then and there. If it will take over two minutes, put it off until you have more time. But this theory, combined with the way tech works today can keep you living like a monkey swinging from branch to branch. The other trap is, the more messages you respond to, the more you receive back in return and then you begin to understand deeply how this is an issue with modern humanity in general right now. Some say the answer to this is to just stop sending messages out, there’s some truth to this, but the reality is many of these messages require a response.
How to handle the fear of keeping up:
All of these things have been incredibly helpful to me in having a healthier relationship with my FOKU and perhaps most importantly is just to be curious about what you’d like to see the relationship look like and when you get pulled away from that intention. Allow this to be a playful endeavor as this will be a marriage that will last a lifetime. Adapted from Mindfulness & Psychotherapy
