Given the significant amount of time we spend plugged into the Internet, it is vital to cultivate healthier routines when engaging with the online world. — 123rf.com
Imagine it’s past midnight and you are in bed scrolling on your phone, looking at funny cat pictures, or checking out the latest status updates of friends on vacation.
The next thing you know, it’s 3am, and you’re looking at maybe four hours of sleep at best before you’re due to clock in at work.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. The addictive nature of both smartphones and social media has become increasingly prevalent in our modern society.
According to a July 2022 report from We Are Social and Hootsuite, Malaysians, on average, spend nine hours and four minutes on the Internet a day, ranking sixth globally for time spent online.
Countless studies have been conducted to draw a link between poor quality sleep, eye strain, and even mental health deterioration due to poor online habits.
A study published in the research journal Frontiers In Psychiatry found that 39% of young adult respondents in the United Kingdom suffered from smartphone addiction, which was linked to lower sleep quality.
Additionally, a separate study published in Springer Nature associated extended time on smartphones with digital eye strain among Hong Kong children and teenagers.
In a more recent report, the University of Bournemouth in Britain found that young adults who passively consume online social media content are more likely to experience anxiety, stress, and depression.
Moreover, the Internet presents real safety concerns for individuals across the board.
In 2019, a Japanese pop idol was assaulted by a stalker who used a reflection in a selfie posted on her social media account to track her down.
The year before, a “serial Instagram stalker” broke into the bedroom of a 13-year-old girl in the United States.
Quitting the Internet is an impossibility for most, considering that it’s more of a necessity at this point than a luxury. Instead, users should explore ways to utilise its benefits in moderation. — Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik
It was also suspected that a location-tagged post led to the shooting of US rapper PnB Rock last September.
Of course, there’s also the rising concern over online fake news, especially with the advent of deepfakes and AI-generated content.
It’s abundantly clear that the digital world indeed has an impact that stretches into reality, but what can we do about it?
The Internet ills
Quitting the Internet is an impossibility for most, considering that it’s more of a necessity at this point than a luxury.
Instead, users should explore ways to utilise its benefits in moderation.
Google launched its Digital Wellbeing initiative back in 2018, which was meant to help users achieve a better balance between their digital lives and reality.
The initiative came alongside a series of videos featuring experts who proposed ways users could become more aware of the time spent on screens.
Samuel says the goal is to have technology pull you in the direction you want instead of letting it pull you off focus. — YouTube screengrab
“Technology touches every aspect of our lives now, and we associate the devices with certain ways we spend our time,” says digital researcher Alexandra Samuel in the video titled “Digital Wellbeing: Focus Your Time With Tech”.
“But it’s not really the technology that typically gets us out of whack. It’s what we do with our technology.
“The goal is ... to try and make your phone into a place where when you touch it, it’s going to pull you in the direction you want to go instead of pulling you off focus.”
Maintaining productivity online without getting sidetracked is one of the main points of the initiative.
Those on Android can make use of the Digital Wellbeing tool, which includes features such as a dashboard that measures the daily screen time of individual apps, the option to set daily screen time goals, and timers for specific apps or a category of apps.
To avoid distractions and accidents while driving and walking, the tool can show you what apps you use the most during such times, as well as monitor how loud you listen to music to ensure that you are keeping your ears safe. iPhones have a similar tool with the Screen Time feature, which can be accessed in the device’s settings menu.
Certain smartphone apps, like Google’s YouTube, have the option to set a reminder to take a break after a certain amount of viewing time, which is worth considering if you are the sort to lose track of time while scrolling.
Establishing clear boundaries can also be key to breaking old habits and cultivating new, better ones.
In the same video, neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley emphasised that having restrictions in place to prevent attention from being diverted elsewhere is crucial.
“Technology is so frictionless in how you move between the different sources that one of the strategies we can do is just make it less accessible.
“Make that next source of information a little bit more difficult to reach, and that would drive you to remain at the source of your attention for a longer period of time,” he says.
Another piece of advice from the videos is to declutter your device’s home screen, as having a display full of apps can be a huge distraction, especially for a person who has trouble focusing on the task at hand.
Both iOS and Android devices also have the option to configure a “focus mode” that disables selected apps, which is helpful for preventing one from accessing those apps at a certain time of day, for instance, before bedtime.
Also, during focus mode, the disabled apps won’t be able to send you notifications.
Bhuyan says using phones before bed activates the mind, preventing the person from unwinding. — YouTube screengrab
Google also brought on family physician Natasha Bhuyan, who spoke about disconnecting in a video titled “Digital Wellbeing: Unplug More Often”.
“When people are using technology right before bed, they want to keep using it. It’s activating their mind rather than shutting it down and allowing them to unwind.
“And what’s often happening is that patients are not able to unplug, and so there isn’t kind of a natural stop time unless we put those parameters down,” she says.
Also in the video was professor of psychology Nick Allen, who followed up by saying: “So we actually can use digital technology to nudge people or remind them to do things that they want to do that are related to their personal goals, and you can do that with sleep as well.”
Those looking for a less extreme measure could block notifications or be more selective with what notifications an app is allowed to send.
According to Prof Allen, children tend to perceive the benefits of technology, whereas parents often focus on the associated dangers. — YouTube screengrab
For example, the YouTube app has the option of sending a single, scheduled notification for multiple videos rather than bombarding the user with individual notifications for each video throughout the day.
Disconnecting devices
Parents concerned about the amount of time their children spend on their phones or social media should look at the various tools at their disposal.
Both iOS and Android have a family control centre – “parental controls” setting on iOS and Family Link on Android – which allows parents to set screen time, enable or disable certain apps or features, block explicit content, and even remotely lock devices.
Many social media platforms have also implemented their own versions of parental control centres, especially following incidents involving child deaths due to viral trends.
These control centres usually give parents the ability to monitor who their children interact with, allow or disallow messaging with others, and monitor and set schedules for screen time.
Those who are tech-savvy can configure their routers to block certain websites – however, the steps vary for different models, and some may even offer the option to enforce the block only on a specific device.
In another video titled “Digital Wellbeing: Find Balance As A Family”, Prof Allen touched on understanding the different perspectives that parents and children have on technology.
“Technology use is where we have the greatest generation gap right now.
“So when a young person looks at their technology use, they see primarily the benefits.
“Older people look at the same thing, and they see danger,” he says.
Brand emphasises the need to understand how children think before setting digital boundaries. — YouTube screengrab
Family therapist Jason Brand also urged parents to have an understanding of what a child thinks before setting boundaries for their use of technology in the video.
“One important thing is to get your child to talk and to begin to express themselves.
“What is your child passionate about? What does your kid find exciting about this?
“And that way, you’ll be in a much better position in order to support them in creating smart rules and guidelines,” he says.
When discussing digital child safety, it’s also key to consider how much (information) about them is being shared online, particularly with the rise of “sharenting”.
In 2019, a Microsoft study found that 42% of teenagers in 25 countries, including Malaysia, felt that the amount of information that their parents posted about them on social media was concerning.
Sixty-six percent of the teenagers participating in the study report that they have already been victims of at least one online risk and worry about encountering another similar experience in the future.
Oversharing doesn’t only apply to children – adults should also be wary about what personal details they post online.
This would include financial information, current location, home address, personal schedule, and other details that could be clues to your passwords or could put you at some sort of risk.
Malware menace
Alongside good online habits, it’s also essential to adopt some best practices when it comes to personal devices such as smartphones and computers.
One of the important factors is to keep devices updated since most manufacturers provide security patches whenever a new vulnerability is discovered.
It’s also why it’s recommended to upgrade from older operating systems like Windows 7, which stopped getting security updates back in 2020 – otherwise, users may be left open to a cyberattack via malware.
On the topic of malware, it is important to do regular virus scans, which can be scheduled.
Even when users are sure that they are being careful when using their machines, a new type of virus – especially one that has not been discovered by security experts – may have found another way to infect the system.
It’s also important to avoid downloading from unreliable websites and installing questionable apps or programs on your devices. Doing so significantly increases the risk of contracting viruses.
It’s also never advisable to plug a random USB drive (read “The Trouble With Thumb Drives”, StarLifestyle, July 10; online at bit.ly/usbdanger), especially one found lying around, into your computer.
Hackers use the tactic of ‘USB dropping’, where they intentionally leave USB drives in public places with the hope that unsuspecting individuals will pick them up and plug them into their devices, unknowingly infecting their machines with malware.
There’s also the often-repeated advice of always using strong passwords to secure your accounts. Though this is something that’s still ignored, as “123456” often tops the list of common passwords, it’s an essential first step in making it more difficult for hackers to break into your account.
The next step is to ensure that you check on a website like haveibeenpwned.com to find out if any of your online accounts have been exposed to hackers or cybercriminals.
It’s also crucial to enable two-factor authentication, such as requiring a one-time password (OTP) to be sent to your phone, as this will stop a hacker even if the person knows your password in the event of a data breach.
