Welcome to September and - at least here, in the UK - to autumn, the transition time.
One most significant skill to learn for good digital wellbeing is managing transitions to and from online activities. Learning to negotiate our online and offline identities, connections and behaviours can be incredibly helpful but is frequently overlooked. I still see many articles about digital wellbeing and online safety assuming a clear cut line between the two worlds. That's simply not the case.
Just like we do not switch off our working brain when we press the "off" button on our laptop, we do not land actively into the work meeting the moment our Zoom window opens up. We do not experience the online content, people and their behaviour as something happening "out there". We know now that our brain experiences virtual reality just as well as grounded reality. What we experience online is just as real as anything else our brains record.
We do not stop feeling the impact of news images from conflict areas once the Internet is off. Often, primarily if something affects us emotionally, we carry it with us throughout the day. We might struggle to sleep that night. We might experience ongoing stress too. When something lovely happens, we live and carry all those positive feelings beyond the screen too.
Accepting the fluidity of our digital experiences is the first step towards a healthier relationship with those technologies. It is not the Internet that affects us but what we behave and how we manage those experiences. We need to learn to regulate our feelings around them all across all our realities.
Managing transitions into and out of those mental and physical experiences is thus incredibly important.
Some of it is relatively easy. We can prepare the working space. We can make time to land into online interactions. We can develop a healthy routine to get up and move at least every hour or two. We might not know a lot about the impact of digital experiences on us, but we do understand essential work health and safety.
Some of it is hard and requires mental discipline. We need to pause unresolved problems. We need to get work done on time. We need to let go of unnecessary commitments, manage boundaries and expectations. We need to plan for a healthy amount of online work, effort and interactions. I wonder: maybe thinking about better digital wellbeing poses a great opportunity to rethink our habits, our tribes, our work, our rest and our playtime.
This month, I am asking you to explore your transitions in any sense of the word. What transitions can you find in your life? How do you approach them? How do you experience them? How can you apply those learnings to transitioning from offline to online and vice versa?
This autumn, Voxel Hub is also in transition, exploring various shades of privilege, writing about digital wellbeing, and connecting with new Advisors to enrich our already outstanding Board. Stay tuned for more!
I wish you all a soft autumn! Have a light September!
