The new Digital Detox — Joy of missing out
Digital Detox — A term you may of heard of before. So what does it actually mean and how can we make use of it in a positive way?
The need for more responsibility using technology hasn`t evolved only yesterday. Conferences, blogs, articles and discussions on- and offline have been going on for a bit now. The moral of making stuff that gets users hooked and kind of addicted has recently been questioned a lot. I already mentioned the bestseller „Hooked“ in my last article here. It was only lately that I attended a conference where a speaker talking exactly about „Harmful Patterns and Bad Practice“ brought up the in her opinion shady motives of author Nir Eyal who has just recently published another bestseller called „indistractable“. It seems to be the cure for the things he sold us in Hooked.
I came back to this after I had stumbled upon the „Paper Phone“ project by a range of projects called „Special Projects“ within Google. After we have now all realized how addicted we are to our displays and receive weekly reports on our Apple and Android devices, after Instagram started telling us when to stop scrolling, Google came up with a self-made paper-based „phone“ to enable us to step away from our digital addiction for a day.
You may as well ask yourself about the real reasons behind all this. Just as you might ask yourself what Philip Morris is up to by telling us to stop smoking („Unsmoke“). Well, I can at least explain this, because actually it is not that they want to destroy their own business. They have just realized that they are kind of the better guys when they support you using e-cigarettes instead of good old FMC (factory made cigarettes). How long this might play well, we will see. But actually it can make you doubt any good reasons behind Google`s or Nir Eyal`s actions.
It is a fact that we have become too addicted to our devices and digital media. Nevertheless most of you readers probably work in the digital industry and use behavioural patterns every day to sell your products. So is it all that bad? Depends on how you use it.
There are actually apps out there using Nir`s patterns for good. Like Just Football, a Swedish startup that encourages kids to go outside and play real football with their peers and combine this real-world experience with a virtual app. Talking about combining on- with offline activity to put your phone away and enjoy the real life, one might argue apps like Headspace support the exact opposite. Engaging their users by helping them form a meditation habit (actually positive!) and telling them how many other users are currently meditating as means of Social Proof can be seen as negative. Because hey, why not build a community with real people at a meditation center close to your home instead of a virtual group you never meet in person but just sit there in your apartment alone?
So the new hot trend is not „FOMO“ any more but „JOMO“ — Joy of missing out. Embrace it and try to implement it in your own apps and websites.
