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Social Media and Screen Addiction: The Death of Productivity (Part II)

Social Media and Screen Addiction: The Death of Productivity (Part II)

In our previous post on Social Media and Screen Addiction, we spoke about just how big the problem of screen addiction is, and how it is related to “propinquity” (the fact that the things that are closest to us in physical space have the biggest effect on our psychological experience of the world). We also discussed the adverse impacts this has on our productivity and left you with the good news  that this addiction can be dealt with. In today’s blog post we discuss how to do that, but before that, we spend a little more time understanding what it is about screens that make them so irresistible.

Why are Screens So Hard to Resist?

  1. The Elimination of Stopping Cues

    The lack of “stopping cues” make it very difficult to stop our consumption of information on social media. The “feed” we scroll is never-ending. Unlike, say a newspaper, or a book. When you get to the end, you know that is the end and you move on to other things. This is not true for screens. For example, the concept of “binge watching” is a fairly new concept. Earlier after the end of one episode, you knew you had to wait another day, or another week for the next episode to air. Today, “next” is the new default, and without us having to do anything. The auto-play on Netflix, or YouTube does it for us. Stopping cues no longer exist. This inevitably makes us spend more time than we used to spend before, engaging with screens.

  1. The Promise of Instant Gratification

    Social Media brought along with it the promise of instant gratification, and also the need for an instant validation. Every time you post something, you keep coming back to check how many “likes” your post has. And the thought of no one responding feels terrifying, almost invalidating. And so you go back again and again, to post and to seek and experience feedback and gratification.

  1. The Power of Goals

    Social media offers us a real driving force in terms of the power of goals. The goals of acquiring an ever-growing round number of followers, likes, shares, etc. While you may realize at some point that the addiction undermines you in the longer run, it is something you want to return to in the short-term again and again because it feels harmless, and you want to do it. This is true of a lot of screen experiences.

Tackling Social Media and Screen Addiction

The first step towards tackling social media and screen addiction is understanding the consequences of the same. Would you believe us if we said it has physical, financial, psychological and sociological consequences? Here is how –

  • Physical: With the amount of time we spend on our phones and screens, we tend to move into a sedentary lifestyle, and hence there is less mobility in our already limited mobility lifestyles. Over use of screens impacts the eyesight. It can even be dangerous for us, and other people when we use our phones without paying attention to our surroundings – especially while walking or driving.
  • Financial: Self-explanatory, if you are the kind who spend money on games/ apps.
  • Psychological: As discussed in the earlier post, screen addiction has had a big impact on how we deal with boredom. Our attitude to boredom has changed to the extent that we cannot sit with our thoughts even for a few minutes. One seems to be ever so resistant to having an ‘idle experience’, and a notification is all it takes to get distracted and plunge into the screen world.
  • Social: With an increase in dependency on screens, it is no surprise that how we experience time with people has changed. Most of our lives are spent in the virtual world – and isn’t that sad? With access to social media, we have the option to not be in the “now” and hence we are never really in this moment. We always have the option to escape the imperfect real world, to get to the perfect virtual world which is at our finger tips.

Tackling Screen Addiction

Now that we have a fairly concise idea about the hydra headed monster we are dealing with, we can look at what solutions we have to tackle it. At the outset, it must be said that it is not possible to completely abstain from social media and screens. We need technology for everything we do, and hence going cold turkey isn’t a good idea. However, here is how you can have a balanced experience and keep the addiction away.

  1. Working on your Awareness

    The foremost thing to do is being aware. Once you have taken stock of how much time you really spend on screens and social media, ask yourself what is it that makes you turn to screens and social media. For example, is this something you do to tackle boredom, or anxiety, or loneliness? Once you get to the core of the issue, and confront the reason, you will realize that your phone is probably not a solution and that these problems need to be addressed for real.

  2. Setting Limits

    It can be immensely useful to be mindful of your consumption of the virtual world. For certain times of the day, make it a point to not have your phone near you. Make it physically harder to reach your phone. Pick a time, set a basic rule, and tell yourself “between 6 PM and 8 PM I am not going to use my phone. I am going to indulge in mindful activities.” This will enable you to have richer, more real experiences. You will be creating the mind space to read, think and be creative.

  3. Practicing mindfulness

    How about swapping mindless scrolling for hours, for having a mindful experience of the real world? Once you have decided to put your phone away, think about the activities that you really wish you had time for, and immerse yourself. You can spend outdoors, or do things you have always liked, which will make you feel better about yourself.

Summing it Up

Remember that there is never an end to how much you can consume on social media – feeds are bottomless. Therefore, you have to force yourself to break away so that you can be mindful of your consumption and not let it hamper your productivity. The platforms we spend a lot of time on, are designed to encourage exactly that, i.e,  mindless experiences in the forms of clicks and likes. It is always important to remember that you have a choice. And at some point, it pays to make that choice to step away.

We hope you enjoyed the two-part series, and it has helped you to gain some amount of perspective in understanding how screen addiction, social media and a loss of productivity are related, and how you can tackle screen addiction!

P.S. This series is inspired by the Calm Masterclass on Social Media and Screen Addiction by Dr. Adam Alter. Calm is a mindfulness and meditation app which offers guided and non-guided meditations. You can get it  here.

Social Media and Screen Addiction: The Death of Productivity (Part 1)

Social Media and Screen Addiction: The Death of Productivity (Part 1)

When Twenty Four Hours isn’t Enough

Never enough time to do everything you plan to do in a day? Have you ever wondered that your phone and social media usage might have something to do with this problem? The pull of screens and social media has never been more over powering. Our phones might as well be an extension of our being. While screens, and the information that they give us access to can be enabling, they pose a big threat to our productivity when used indiscriminately. It is difficult to tackle a bad habit, in this case screen addiction, unless we understand what it is, how it impacts us and what we can do to deal with it. We delve into this problem in-depth with our two-part series of exploring the problem of Social Media and Screen Addiction, how it impacts productivity adversely and how we can deal with this very real problem.

The Magnitude of the Problem

Screens are very addictive – and though we needn’t really a cite a research to prove this point, for the sake of being factual: a recent research shows us that an average Indian spends about 2.5 hours on various apps every day. This doesn’t come as a surprise because no matter where we are, our phones are within our reach all the time. The very first step towards eliminating, or even reducing social media and screen addiction is to be aware of how dependent we are on it, by checking how long we spend on a screen.

Fortunately, technology enables us to do that through apps. Apps like AntiSocial track your daily activity on your phone, and collate data about your daily, weekly and monthly usage. You can also set a time limit for the apps you use on the phone, and AntiSocial will block those apps from being used after you have exhausted your time limit allotted for them. Of course, you can unblock the apps for usage. However, you do it with the knowledge that you are spending more time than you intended to, on being unproductive.

Understanding Propinquity

There is a concept in psychology known as ‘propinquity’. What it means is, things that are closest to you in physical space have the biggest effect on your psychological experience of the world. Understanding this concept with relation to our phones makes sense. Our phones have become natural crutches that we turn to, even when we don’t really need it for something functional. With our dependency on phones, we see a remarkable rise in our resistance to any ‘empty’ moment. Or, our resistance to boredom.

It is important to realize and acknowledge this, because boredom is how we get our fuel for creativity. It is when we get bored, stay with the discomfort of boredom and turn inward to address how we are feeling that we are truly mindful and aware of what is going on. But turning away from boredom by using our phones as a medium aborts that extremely important process.

With easy, continuous access to our phones, we have almost completely eliminated this opportunity. There are fewer moments of mindfulness and awareness with us being able to reach out to our phones even without moving.

Its Impact on our Productivity

  1. More reasons to procrastinate

    The worst enemy of productivity is procrastination. And our capacity to procrastinate is directly proportional to how many things there are to distract us from staying focused on the task at hand. With our phones, the distractions that we can delve into to procrastinate ‘just a little more’, are infinite. Delaying work becomes much easier when we have ready distractions to turn to.

  2. A loss of mindfulness

    As a result of screen addiction we miss out being present. We miss out on being in the nowThis lack of mindfulness hampers our productivity because we do the tasks we are assigned with just half a mind, and half a heart.

  3. Never enough time

    And going back to what we said at the beginning of this post – as a result of all the mindless hours we spend on our phones, we realize that the time has passed rather quickly and we haven’t gotten enough work done! This in turn plays a big role in influencing our self-esteem and self-worth.

The Good News

But the good news is, one can turn back and stop gadgets from controlling your life. You can reclaim all your time, and boost your productivity even if you have so far been a victim of screen addiction. Stay clued in for our next blog post in which we will tell you why it is so hard to break away from your screen, and how mindfulness can come to your rescue!

P.S. This series is inspired by the Calm Masterclass on Social Media and Screen Addiction by Dr. Adam Alter. Calm is a mindfulness and meditation app which offers guided and non-guided meditations. You can get it here.

Keeping Healthy at Work – A Necessity

Keeping Healthy at Work – A Necessity

Recently, a newspaper reported that every year around new years time, there is a record increase in gym memberships. It attributed the possible causes for this to people wanting to make a positive difference to their lives, look and feel better, before stepping out of an old year, or while stepping into a new year. But, what it did not report is the sudden drop in attendance as the months roll by. Well, we do not need to read this in a paper to realize this, we are already aware of this.

Why do we feel that it is only around the special milestones that we need to move towards making a healthier difference to our lifestyles? While that question is for a psychologist to address, we are only going to advocate why being healthy all year round is really the way to go. We need not sign up for membership at a gym, or try out unsuccessful but expensive detox diets every now and then. Incorporating small, yet sustainable methods of staying healthy is possible. Even when you have a full-time, mind-numbingly demanding job (this being an extreme, of course). And here is how.

  1. Keeping Healthy at Work: Get Moving

    Depending on how active or sedentary your lifestyle is, incorporate at least 30 to 60 minutes of conscious activity into your schedule. For example, if you have a typical 9 to 5 job, chances are the scope for you to find time specifically for working out is difficult. And if you do find the time, you find it hard to maintain it. There are a number of ways you can substitute for it at work. The first thing you can do is focusing on stretching every hour for 5 minutes. This also ensures you don’t keep sitting at your desk for prolonged periods and saves you all that stiffness and cramps. Another way you can focus on being fit while at work is using the lunch break well. Get a step counter on your phone (you don’t even need a fitbit!) and set your target. And cracking. Just walking can help you burn enough calories, and is a start in the direction of staying fit.

  2. Keeping Healthy at Work: Hydrate

    Most, or many of us, especially millenials are very guilty of the atrocious habit of never drinking enough water. The side effects of this are long-term, and in all probability irreversible when one reaches the tipping point. Adequate quantities of water in your system is essential to help you feel active, and stay fit. On an average an adult would be required to consume at least 2 liters of water (it varies according to your Body Mass Index (BMI), you can check how much water you need to consume, here). Cut down on caffeine, aerated and sweetened drinks and make a conscious effort to consume enough water. One method that could help you is keeping track – if you need to consume 2 liters, fill up two 1 liter bottles and make sure you finish them by the end of the day!

  3. Keeping Healthy at Work: Sugar fix? You can stay away

    Every time you find yourself reaching out for a candy bar or a cookie, because you feel “stressed”, or feel like it will help you function better, know that is Lucifer speaking to you. And what do you do when the devil is trying to advise you? You stay away. Cravings are only psychological manifestations. It is not your body that needs these sugar fixes, it is simply in your mind. While this might sound fairly unpalatable, a wise alternative to a sugar fix is fruit.

  4. Keeping Healthy at Work: Speaking of fruit…

    Make it a habit to have at least one helping of fruit a day. Most fruits commonly available are power packed with antioxidants and natural goodness (we are trying to not think about the chemicals injected). Not just fruit, be more attentive to what you see on your plate. Are consuming more carbs and less protein? Moving towards a protein rich diet helps you build energy and muscle, while getting rid of the fat in your body. You can stock the pantry up at your workplace at the beginning of every week, in a way that you know what you are going to consume for the rest of the week. By doing this, you can also stay away from giving into sudden impulses to have fast or junk food.

  5. Encourage your co-workers to hop on

    It is always more fun to do something in a group. And more so when the benefits are remarkable. Form your own buddy/ support group at your workplace. That way you will have each others backs whenever you find yourself deviating from caring for your health, or falling into bad habits again. A great way to keep this group alive would be to meet once a week and share highs and lows of the week, pertaining to your respective health routines. No time to meet up? No worries – technology to your rescue – a group on WhatsApp would be just as good!

Have pro tips about how you can keep healthy at work? We are all ears!

5 Small Investments you Can Make to Boost Employee Engagement

5 Small Investments you Can Make to Boost Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is not just another buzzword or a metric that your organization needs to keep track of. It is all about creating a work space, where your employees can get up in the mornings and say, “Great, I’m going to work. I know what I’m going to do today. I’ve got some great ideas about how to do it really well. I’m looking forward to seeing the team and helping them work well today”. (source)

The best definition we could find on what employee engagement really means is this, “Employee engagement is a workplace approach resulting in the right conditions for all members of an organisation to give of their best each day, committed to their organisation’s goals and values, motivated to contribute to organisational success, with an enhanced sense of their own well-being” (source: engageforsuccess.org).

The process of employee engagement is a continuous one which begins during the on-boarding process – right at the outset, and carries on. And to really make employee engagement a continuous process, one of the best ways to go about it is through making small investments, which make a big difference.

Here are five proven ways of increasing employee engagement, without having to spend any money (or atleast not much).

  1. Creating a culture of Mentoring

    Bringing about changes to the organizational culture is often hard, but without a doubt, one of the best ways to bring about the change you want to see in your organization. Having a culture of mentorship or mentoring, within your organization is a great way to boost employee engagement. When your employees know they can reach out to trusted mentors within the work place to help them address issues they are facing at work, or help them be more productive with valuable guidance, it provides a definite boost to the levels of their engagement.

  2. Recognizing the value of Mental Health

    Making investments in caring for your employees’ mental health should not be an exception anymore, but a rule. While countries in the West have started taking mental health awareness and interventions with more seriousness than before, India though picking up pace, still has a long way to go. To let your employees know that their mental health comes before anything else, is an indispensable way of you showing that you care. And a place where employees feel cared for, will be a place they will devote their 100% to. Have you read our previous blogs on metal health yet? And do you believe that mental health should be your number one resolution for 2018? If you don’t, maybe you should have a look at this.

  3. Recognizing the value of Feedback

    Without a system of regular and consistent feedback, there can be no way for employees to know how they are faring. Their growth may be stunted, and despite possessing talent and skills to mature within the organization, they might begin to slack. This is the very reverse of what employee engagement aims for. Creating a system of feedback goes a long way in ensuring employee and employer satisfaction. Issuing constructive and timely feedback helps employees to stay focused and confident to do their best.

  4. Recognizing the value of Flexibility

    By giving your employees the gift of “choices”, you move towards creating a workplace with significantly higher levels of employee engagement. Making space for flexible conditions for work is a powerful way of boosting productivity. For example, many organizations still associate the option of working from home as one that triggers lower levels of productivity. Research though, has shown results quite contrary to this assumption.  Allowing your employees flexible schedules, and the option of working from home could actually be a win-win situation for both parties!

  5. Implanting Trust

    Trust perhaps, is the single most important investment you can make in your employees. Think back to the process of recruitment you may have, and you will realize how most of the process was in fact a scrutiny of whether you can trust the job you want to give out, at the hands of the person you are looking to hire. It is the same trust that must be preserved and nurtured after you complete the process of hiring and the recruit glides into his/ her role. Matters like choosing to delegate (and then letting go until the completion of the task!), being open to new ideas, being open to flexibility and feedback, are some small yet significant ways that help you show that you trust your employees. Could there be a better way of keeping them engaged, and happy? We think not!

Still wondering what employee engagement is all about?

Your employees can said to be truly “engaged”, when they are committed and motivated towards what they have been entrusted to do. And it leads to happier workplaces and happier bottom-lines.

Measuring Loyalty: Is it Possible? A Guide to Modern Day Loyalty

Measuring Loyalty: Is it Possible? A Guide to Modern Day Loyalty

Do age old scruples such as loyalty to your employer at your workplace even make sense in the highly globalized and ever evolving world of work, today? To ask a much more basic question, what does loyalty even mean? In an age and world where growth is characterized by dynamism, is loyalty a virtue, or a hindrance to success? Most importantly though, can one measure loyalty?

There is no defined way of addressing these questions. Experiences are lived differently, and opinions are as diverse as experiences. In this post, we wish to explore the aspect of loyalty to an employer from a more ‘everyday’ perspective. Or, to put it in a better way – what would “loyalty” to your employer in the modern day comprise of? Loyalty needn’t necessarily mean an undying pledge to be forever rooted in the same organization, against your interests of growth because you believe in and respect your employer. What it comes real close to, in meaning though, is honesty. How you answer the following questions for yourself will help you understand what your feelings are, about loyalty towards your employer at your work place.

  1. Measuring Loyalty: How accountable to your employer do you feel, on an everyday basis?

    To understand this question we need to understand that accountability here does not mean the forced or imposed kind. One of the best examples to understand true accountability is when you have a role that enables you to work from home. True, even work from home roles have their own protocols of surveillance, but unarguably it does present more scope where you could “choose” to slack. But would you? Or would you feel a sense of accountability towards your employer and strive to put in an honest day’s work? You are accountable even if you may not feel particularly loyal towards your organisation/ employer. However, the purpose of juxtaposing these two aspects is to gain an insight about how one would personally analyze his/her reason for feeling accountable without being made to feel accountable.

  2. Measuring Loyalty: From the following words – fear, respect, indifference, – which would come close to describing how you feel towards your employer?

    Do you feel afraid of your employer? Is the driving motivation for your work fear?
    Do you respect your employer? Are you motivated to work hard, and give your job the best you can because your employer inspires you and commands respect?
    Or do you feel indifferent? You put in your 8 hours, and go home. Nothing more, nothing less.
    How you would define your opinion of your employer and your relationship with him/ her is an important factor in determining your loyalty towards your employer. One might stay loyal out of fear, but that counts as a toxic workplace attitude. One might be indifferent – in which case, you would indifferent to the aspect of loyalty. However, one might be motivated to do well because of love and respect for the employer – which is a true measure of loyalty.

  3. Measuring Loyalty: How prone would you be to getting poached?

    This would be the ultimate test for loyalty. One of the most important ways of measuring loyalty is to determine how susceptible the employee is, to believing that the grass is greener on the other side. When we talk about modern day loyalty, this becomes a huge factor because increase in attrition rates is a concern that many organisations are facing. Attrition rates are also reflective of how an organization treats its employees. Assuming that your workplace does not have a high attrition rate, and employees are taken care of, where would you place yourself? How prone would you be to getting carried away with a job offer that appears lucrative? Would you ditch your organisation which has invested in you, and an employer who trusts your skills, for some place where the grass seems greener?

Measuring Loyalty: From the Other End of the Spectrum

Now lets take a look at loyalty, from the other end of the spectrum. We put what we want to say in perspective by including excerpts from a superb article on Medium – On Loyalty by Stevie Buckley. You can read the full article here.

You are a transaction. Sure, your employer gives you the impression they care about you but as soon as you start costing the company money or pose a risk to the company’s image or breach any other element of your 300 page contract, then I can absolutely assure you that they will drop you in a heartbeat. You don’t even need to do anything wrong to be at risk. If the company is struggling financially, due to no fault of yours, you and all your colleagues are at risk. Suddenly the corporate line of “we’re all family here” sounds a bit ridiculous.

Your employer pays you to spend more time with them than you spend with your family and/or loved ones. Your employer is one of the biggest influencers on your mental well-being. Your employer can and will replace you in a heartbeat if absolutely necessary.

Let me be explicitly clear, your employer isn’t your family and they are not your friend. They pay you to do a job and your responsibility is to do that job well.

  • Do not sacrifice your relationship with family and friends to appease your employer.
  • Do not sacrifice your mental wellbeing to appease your employer.
  • Do not sacrifice your dignity, values and ethics to appease your employer.
  • Do not buy into the bullshit hype of “hustle” to appease your employer.

Mutual Respect

Get your head down and work hard. If your employer compensates you well, puts effort into ensuring you are healthy in every sense and invests in your personal and/or professional growth then by all means, tell the world how happy you are.

Focus on your own growth. Focus on helping the humans you work with. Focus on being efficient with your time and efforts so that you can spend even more time and effort on the things and people that truly matter.

And that’s the apt note to end this post at, with ample food for thought with what modern day loyalty comprises of, and if and how loyalty can be measured!