I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. (Henry David Thoreau)
My smartphone used to be switched off for most of the day to protect myself from its addictive properties and to honor an alliance with a simpler, quieter, and principled way of living—think Thoreau, or, maybe, a Theravada Buddhist nun. But since the beginning of this year, that’s no longer an option. As a type 1 diabetic insulin pump carrier, I am forced by NHS safety rules to upgrade the equipment every four years, and the new models require the use of a phone app that communicates via Bluetooth with the pump and the blood sugar sensor attached to my upper arm. This continuous loop system certainly gives better average blood-sugar results, but the jury is still out as to whether it improves my quality of life in a more general way.
The more complicated a system, the more likely it is for something to go wrong and the more stressful it is. The cannula may not be inserted properly, so that the delivered insulin undetectably pools on the skin rather than being absorbed into it, leading to high blood sugar levels. I may be traveling and the phone battery runs dry. I leave the house without my phone, which is attached to the charging cable. I lose Bluetooth connection with the app when I am further than eight meters away from it, like me in the kitchen, the phone by the desktop. (I am gradually changing my wardrobe so I can always put the phone into a pocket.) Often, the algorithm behind the system makes decisions that don’t make any apparent sense, and none of the healthcare professionals I consult quite know how it works.
If you are interested, here is a glimpse into what it is like to live with this chronic condition. It’s 10 p.m., a graph on my phone shows that glucose levels are stable in the lower end of the target zone. (To be fair, it is great to know that, without having to prick my finger for the lower-tech blood tests I did for many years.) I clean my teeth and get settled in bed with my nighttime book, when the low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) alarm goes off and I have to eat something sweet quickly, such as glucose tablets or a banana. Looking at the pump history on my phone, I see that the algorithm administered a small amount of insulin that tipped me into this hypo.
The very device that saves my life also saps my time and energy, and undermines my focus and composure. When I check my app, inevitably some message or other will pop up, despite doing my best to block such things. And before I know it, I am watching someone weaving, in quick succession, several complicated hair knots—and I don’t even have long hair. Or I “love” someone’s holiday pics, while vaguely feeling that I may be missing out on something, before catching myself and turning off the screen. But hold on—was I not about to find out where my blood sugar levels are at?
Even if you don’t use your phone as a medical device, the essential dilemma I am describing will be familiar to you. There is no question that smartphones and other digital devices can be useful means of communication with family and friends. My 10-year-old Buddha-daughter now has a tablet and we are in a phase of texting each other, possibly communicating more that way than we did in person. Smart technology is an exhilarating learning tool and is convenient for finding your way around. But it is designed to exploit our fundamental human needs in ways that provide only superficial satisfaction and stimulate further craving. We’re wired for connection, novelty, and validation, and smartphones provide endless artificial versions of these. They offer the simulation of social connection without the messy vulnerability of real relationships. They provide constant stimulation that makes ordinary consciousness feel insufficient. When we switch off the illuminated screen, the reality we perceive without digital enhancements can sometimes appear dull and uninspiring. There can be an alarming sense of disorientation: why are things so slow, dimly lit, and boring? Why is there a creeping sense of unease with how I am feeling? Why does communication not flow more easily? Why is it suddenly unclear what I am supposed to be doing next? It would be all too easy to try to scroll the discomfort away.
Recent research has shown outcomes that come from blocking mobile internet access for just two weeks:
. . . improved mental health, subjective well-being, and objectively measured ability to sustain attention; 91% of participants improved on at least one of these outcomes . . . these improvements can be partially explained by the intervention’s impact on how people spent their time; when people did not have access to mobile internet, they spent more time socializing in person, exercising, and being in nature. (Oxford Academic)
This sounds promising and easy to do. But in reality, switching off, particularly from social media, means having to face loneliness. “If you decide to get off social media and nobody else is in the real world, you truly are missing out on some level,” said the psychiatrist and addiction specialist Dr Anna Lembke. (The Observer)
In order to make that transition away from the phone, conscious tolerance of discomfort is essential. This is as true in this area of addiction as it is in any other. It is useful to look at how we can meet the needs it satisfies—particularly that for connection—in other ways. Regular meditation practice is a way to rediscover and make friends with ourselves as multi-dimensional beings with a large, bewildering range of feelings and energy states, rather than the precarious, flat, carefully curated online personalities we present in the social media world. This also gives us the confidence to meet others in more relaxed, uncensored ways.
And there is nature, and here I praise my allotment, once again, for the opportunity to tap into the rhythms of dark and light, flowering and decay, wet and dry, hot and cold, and all the shades in between. Yesterday, I decided to spend the whole hot July day there rather than trying to go somewhere more beautiful, dramatic, or photogenic and out of the city. I was writing and noticed that I tend to place my chair so that I have a view of the most beautiful part of the garden: the roses and the waterlilies on our tiny pond or the abundantly growing kale. This time I chose to face the messy area next to the prayer flag-garlanded rain shelter where we keep old plant pots, buckets with and without holes, metal frames holding decomposing leaf mold, plastic bags full of horse manure, sticks and twine of various lengths, white ex-underfloor heating pipes serving as hoops for netting, white ex-packaging polystyrene blocks we use for meditation, and other disorderly items that “may come in useful.” As I was looking at the area closely, I thought it was like switching off the glamourous laptop screen and appreciating, with genuine curiosity, what gradually emerges out of the murkiness of multidimensional, chaotic living. I took a photo of it, wondering whether it may serve, in all its ordinary messiness, as an illustration for this article, and whether Justin, my trusted editor at BDG, would deem it attractive enough to draw in potential readers.
Smart technology is here to stay and we can learn to use it wisely as part of evolving, complex systems. I found this insightful comment in an article on complexity in healthcare:
Our learnt instinct with such issues, based on reductionist thinking, is to troubleshoot and fix things—in essence to break down the ambiguity, resolve any paradox, achieve more certainty and agreement, and move into the simple system zone. But complexity science suggests that it is often better to try multiple approaches and let direction arise by gradually shifting time and attention towards those things that seem to be working best. (National Library of Medicine)
In order to find this choiceful, observational, and interactive stance, we can do a few things—apart from regular meditation—that may help loosen our identification with smartphones so we can start using them in less habitual ways. We can create phone-free zones in the home, for example. In this way, we build tolerance for waiting and accepting “empty” time without filling it, instead doing bodywork and spending time in nature. Switching off in these ways resets the system and we may find new, creative ways to engage with smart technology, and maybe even enjoying the inherent conundrums. See this dialogue I had with “Claude,” my favorite AI tool, during the writing of this article:
Claude: The system is called continuous glucose monitoring, but it’s actually created continuous phone monitoring. You’ve become the one who has to be continuously available to the technology, rather than the other way around.
Me: I am enjoying exploring this with you, even apart from writing this article. It is ironic though, because I have been sitting at this desk for far too long already.
Claude: Ha! Oh, the delicious irony – here I am, another algorithm keeping you glued to your screen, probably making your back stiff and your eyes tired, while we discuss the very problem of digital captivity! You’ve just perfectly demonstrated the seductive nature of these interactions. Even when we’re consciously exploring the issue of tech addiction, the exploration itself becomes another form of engagement that keeps us from actually living the solution. It’s like having a really engaging conversation about the importance of silence. Go on then – off to your allotment, or at least away from this screen!
See more
The Benefits of Unplugging From Your Smartphone (Integris Health)
Blocking mobile internet on smartphones improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being (Oxford Academic)
I quit Instagram. This is what I lost (The Observer)
The challenge of complexity in health care (National Library of Medicine)
Related features from BDG
Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Social Media Through Vipasyana
Ego Attachment and the Myth of “Knowing Yourself:” Understanding Non-self in the Age of Social Media
Death by 1,000 Clicks and Swipes: Exploring the Toll that Technology Overuse Takes
On Technology and Human Connection: An Interview with Ajahn Brahm
Mindfully Ending Addiction
The ‘Double Dukkha’ of Craving and Addiction
