In the age of the smartphone, it’s easy to become a slave to technology. That’s not to say that all technology enthusiasts are slaves to their gadgets. Far from it. But it is easier than ever to fall into that trap. Thankfully, it’s just as easy to shed those technological shackles and turn the equation around. With all the functions our gadgets can perform, it’s also easier than ever to make technology work for us.
The principle at the center: How to make your gadgets less of a distraction. If we can do that, we can use them to improve our lives. Here’s how to do this with one of the most common and universal gadgets, the smartphone.
Technological slavery: how to triumph over IT!
Slave to the Smartphone
There it goes again. The red light is blinking again. Maybe an alert sounded. Whatever the case, something just distracted you from your work. Anyone who uses a BlackBerry for work knows this feeling all too well. The flashing red light means a new message, which in turn means someone wants something from you. Better drop what you’re doing and get to it.
Such is the life of a technological slave. No one enjoys it, when it comes during working hours. Unfortunately, for a slave to technology it doesn’t end there. The alerts come at all hours: at home with the family, on weekends, and even while on vacation. Those are prime times to ignore requests and separate from technology, but the slave can’t help himself. He keeps going back to see what’s behind that red blinking light.
Even worse, the blinking red light or the beep can mean dozens of different things these days. Everything from email and text messages, to applications such as Facebook. It’s all one big distraction, and it takes away from things that actually need doing.
The only question is, who would ever want to be such a slave?
Breaking free of technological slavery
The only way to break those chains and free ourselves from smartphone slavery is to condition ourselves. One way we can accomplish this is to set up self-discipline safeguards. If we can’t escape the Pavlovian response to the blinking red light, we have to somehow limit its occurrence. Thankfully, this is easily accomplished on a smartphone.
If the sound of an alert is what draws you to the device, turn sounds off. If it’s the blinking red light, flip the device upside down. Maybe you’ll miss something here or there, but unless your job requires immediate response to issues, this shouldn’t be much of an issue. If it is an issue, technological slavery might be built into your job. But if it’s not, you’ll get to the message soon enough.
Then, at a regular interval — maybe ever 15 minutes at first, and gradually expanding from there — check your messages. But only check after those 15 or 30 or 60 minutes are up. What most people find is that they didn’t miss anything that required an immediate response. The sender was quite content to wait the 15 or 30 minutes for the reply.
This exercise can expand into the weekends, and it can extend for hours on end. Set the phone aside and do something with the family or friends. Then, after an hour or two, check to see what you missed. Again, it’s not likely that anything required an immediate response.
It’s then that we see that we can break free from technology.
Also read: Beat PROCRASTINATION without taking Psychology course
Turning the tables
Once we free ourselves from technological slavery, we can realize what technology can do for us. That is, it can help us get organized and live simpler lives. Here is just a partial list of functions that our smartphones can help us achieve, for free or at least very cheaply.
- Financial aid. There are dozens of free budget tools for every smartphone platform. These tools make it easy to record what we spend and keep under budgets. After all, smartphones come with us everywhere, so it’s easy to write down what we spend and compare that to a budget.
- Workflow control. In the slave stage, the workflow controls us. Once we start to use technology to our advantage, we control the workflow. Task managers and calendars make it easy to schedule what tasks get done when. And if we turn over our smartphones and put our noses to the grindstone, those tasks get done distraction-free.
- News filter. Any type of media can become a distraction. That is, if it’s pushed to us. With smartphones it’s easy to pull the news items you want to read and leave out all the rest. Set everything to manually update, and you’ll never see an item as a distraction. It is, instead, an escape.
- Leisure aid. Many smartphone functions boil down to leisure. Streaming video lets us escape the world for a few minutes. Many apps work with your fitness program. Various games and activities have dedicated apps. These can all enhance our leisure time activities.
The key is to integrate these functions into your daily life, rather than have them thrown at you. It’s a thin line between technological slavery and technological mastery. But once found, it can have a profound aspect on your life. Using your smartphone for the things you want, when you want them, rather than having things thrown at you, is the key to breaking the shackles and mastering your device.
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I used to have so many challenges in staying focus especially whenever my phone is somewhere around me..I just don’t know why until I read your article. You have shown me now how to be more productive by staying away from too many distractions that emanates from smartphones.
Thanks Dan for your wonderful write up.
Wow! Thank you for coming around here Tommy. Hoping to see you once more 🙂
Its very interesting information about smartphone…Thank you for sharing…keep it up…Waiting for next interesting Article…
You’re right! Really interesting stuff!
Smartphone have done enough bad than good when it comes to distraction but can the good side of a smartphone can be overemphasized .
good one……..thanks for sharing nice article
Great blog… thanks for sharing…
How true it is that my iPhone at times overtakes me. It controls me instead and I need to control it! Great post and suggestions.
Nice blog…Thank you for sharing this information…waiting for next interesting content from the TECHATLAST family.
Great article and nice idea there is no need to carry different types of batteries for different phones it is simple to carry one port for all mobles.
Wow! Thank you for coming around here Tommy. Hoping to see you once more
It is simple to use one battery and charger adaptor of different different mobile. no need to buy everyone.
thanks for this information
I use the gadget just for the needs of any job
outside of work I tend to ignore
very nice article
I do not understand what is the purpose in that article. but I really like
Informative article, we all have the technology but we don’t know the exact power of that, after reading the article definitely many person will come to know extra thing that they don’t know like budgeting, news, directions by map and many other thing.
Nice article.
Hope to receive more knowledgeable articles.
Regards….
It is not an easy challenge, but is possible. My mobile phone help me with my work most of the time.
Nice post. I use my mobile for blogging purpose. And carrying adopter is nice idea.
Very usefull information. Keep posting……
I used a smartphone before and I find it very distracting, plus the thought of having to charge every 6 to 12 hours is very annoying. So now I use my trusty Nokia 3310 for making calls and text. It may not have the advanced features that the Smartphone has, but it’s great for two things: call and text which is what I needed more than Facebook and Clash of Clans.
Oh and I by the way, I lost my smartphone so I no longer have one and I don’t intend to buy one anytime soon.
Interesting article even though I now live for my phone.
Occasionally, however, you should turn it off and look around because you lose a lot of life.
wow , this post is amazing
nice article.. thanks for sharing
Hey guys,
This is the first time I am visiting this place and I really enjoyed it. But, I personally think that smartphones should distract. After all, you have spent your hard earned money.
Thanks for sharing!!!
You are absolutely right now a days we become slave to technology.
Great information. The mobile phone can be like house arrest ankle bracelet that makes you accessible 24/7. You soon realize everything isn’t as important as you thought and how much you can get done when you’re not perpetually distracted by it.
i mean that ,its very importat article for everything.we can change my life by use smart phone.
thank you.
I’ve a smartphone. So this resource can help me too much.
Thanks
Thank you for this post!
thank you for giving us this useful and helpful information your blog is informative.
Thanks for sharing blog with us..
That’s nice. More to do is that not overcharged the phone every time. Dont put the phone on charging for more than 2-3 hours.
Thanks Hooda for this excellent and important reminder. Many smartphone users tend to forget their mobile device on the spot while charging in most cases thinking it is good. But little do these people knew that it is at the detriment of their smartphone.
Thanks for sounding the reminder again. 🙂
This is really nice and technical article.
Thanx you Sir you done a excellent job great
Great post really surprising many interesting things about smartphones.Awesome….post
Good article! I am webmaster, programmer etc., but can control myself and get only positive influence from technology.
Really a great stuff! All smartphone lovers will love this article. Thank you very much.