Now Is The Time To Find Balance With Technology (not later)

In 2021 my life took a drastic change regarding my relationship with technology. From being a hedonistic “do whatever you want” 30-year old who spent far too much time on the Internet, I found out that a balance would be needed for me to not sink into an endless hole of depression and anxiety.

The “12-hour model: Using the Internet for only 12 hours a week

Sure, other circumstances were a also part of the sinkhole, but my smartphone, the Internet and endless media consumption were definitely substantially contributing to something negative. I had nothing to lose by trying to change. After endless research, reading book after book on the topic; everything from “Digital Minimalism” by Cal Newport to Anna Lembke’s “Dopamine Nation”, I decided to actively create a time-management system based on statistics about mental health; mainly graphs that indicated that our mental health — around 2007, right when the first iPhone arrived —was steeply in a decline.

Source: ResearchGate.com, https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Growth-of-research-on-mental-health-and-well-being-of-university-students_fig2_342049938 “Growth of research on mental health and well-being of university students”, a sample-study that mimics the broader collective

I don’t want to go too much into numbers or details, but just to clarify what most of us already know; the constant access to powerful mini-computers in 2007 gave us a boost in media and Internet consumption. While the hours of time spent on the Internet before 2007 when the first iPhone released, were around 12–15 hours a week (depending on where you were located in the world), these hours are now at an all-time high of 36–55 hours a week. For some college students, the numbers are even higher up; to 70 hour a week. These hours are concrete statistics that indicate how tethered we are to our technology. Our forced buffers of home-bound desktop computers from the early to mid 2000’s are gone. Enter the the start of “Endlessly tied to our devices”-era. An era where you are looked upon with suspicion if you don’t have a smart device on you — not necessarily for anything criminally related, but for the sheer strangeness of it — for being the slightly “off” person that doesn’t quite fit in.

I knew I’d gladly be that slightly “off” person if substituting convenience for health was the price. My new desired lifestyle had to be based off of the numbers and statistics I had researched; 12 hours of Internet/media time per week would be a good starting point. I knew I could always adjust the numbers based on what felt right after some weeks of trial and error and delegated those 12 hours to four days a week; Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday, leaving me with Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday as “offline days”. As for work; I knew that productive work in the workplace, albeit all happening ON the Internet, isn’t categorically the same as mindless surfing after work, especially since it doesn’t mimic the dopamine-depleting nature of say TikTok. Just like a tabloid magazine, although written, is technically physical “reading-material”, long form even, it is not the same as a full novel. We have to differentiate between proactive, creative and work-related usage of the Internet, and passive, mind-numbing, procrastination. Fortunately, with the help of authors such as Cal Newport and Anna Lembke, I early on understood the difference (so no guilt at work, unless you compulsively check your mail every 5 seconds. Check yourself!)

In the beginning, my offline days were awful. “What the hell do I do with all this time?”. “Why is everything so damn boring?”. “Why can’t I focus on my reading?!”. “She’s talking, but I don’t get her”. I realized that the past decade had thoroughly morphed my brain into a processing machine for endless novelty and entertainment. The real world around me, wasn’t entertaining me. My brain had undergone a metamorphosis and had transformed, which is why I perceived it as “wrong”.

Luckily I knew that this was an acclimation period. A period where I had to suffer the consequences of my previous lifestyle. I know now in retrospect 2024, that this was not necessarily a meaningless time of suffering. In a universe of causation — “do an action, it will have an effect” — I was simply bringing my brain back into equilibrium. It wasn’t used to slower, natural stimulus, like the a walk through a forest, or a page in a book about “The Precious Ring”, or even a conversation, so anything off-base from what it had set as a default; the hyper-stimulating world of the Internet I lived in, was naturally uncomfortable. Like an alcoholic with withdrawal symptoms, I had to painfully push through my first months. And I did.

The Consequence

“I managed 12 hours per week for a month!” turned into “Done it for half a year now”. My focus turned razor sharp. My relationships got better. Those six months quickly turned into a year. I started spending time in nature more. Analogue hobbies such as Lego’s were now a part of my forte. I discovered that reading “The Lord of The Rings” gave me my own personal version of it, rather than getting the director’s version (the movie is also great by the way, I would never knock it!). I started writing more. My mental health was better. Life simply opened itself up to new experiences. My three offline days a week were becoming days where my mind was rejuvenating itself, devoid of the mental noise of the collective mind. Days of silence, reflection, physical activity, contemplation, connection (real connection!), being okay with not doing anything for an hour maybe, meditation, being okay with uncomfortable parts of postponed healing…it all had space on these days.

This was my spare-time calendar for 2021. I intentionally made sure that my time after working hours were not unconsciously spent on whatever compulsion would drive me in the evenings, establishing some boundaries that directed my energy in the right direction. My offline days were “dopamine production” days

At the same time, the door to the digital world was still open. This crazy, free-for-all world where anything was possible, was still a world I had access to. 12 hours per week is not a luddite’s version of a life-style change. By being offline some days a week, you very much still have access to the online world, as I realized when I developed other variants of the 12-hour model. As of now, in 2024, I’m using what I call the “Bank Account Approach”, which is basically a weekly 12-hour timer that I can push the button to whenever I use Internet media, whether it’s Youtube, Reddit, Instagram or anything related (I will write about what counts as “media” and “internet” time in another article).

This approach is a bit different from the previously mentioned “scheduled” 12-hour model where days are specifically set for online and offline time as shown above on my “spare-time schedule” from 2021". The flexibility of the “Bank Account Approach” is that you can be on the Internet whenever you want throughout the week and for as long as you want — although I recommend max 3 hours a time — but only as to far the “bank account”, aka your weekly timer, allows it. If it is down to 0, you have no more online time for the rest of the week. Obviously there are many other ways to manage the 12-hour model, I’m writing a very thorough book on all the experiments I’ve done regarding Internet Time Management where I’m going through everything in detail with a plethora of models and variants; the key however is to be conscious of the time you spend on your device weekly, not the variants themselves. The mentioned examples are just some of many I have developed to keep my balance with technology in check.

Now is the time (when it’s still possible)

In a world where pandora’s box is permanently open, the time-management model I have created become keys to both worlds. One is a key to the reality of slow and natural stimulus, reminiscent of my time as a young kindergartner where landlines, handwritten postal mails and the many instances of “Is Jimmy home today?” were the ways of keeping in touch. The other to a more high-paced world where ideas, content, communication and technology is being trail blazed into a new planet, on to an Internet that is consciously brought into my life as I tap on the 3 hour countdown-timer every time I watch a Youtube video. Both keys serve as an extension for a new me, a me that now knows that the upgrading human is aligned with an upgraded technology, but also — by the merits of the old me — understands that an unconscious human who is surrounded by highly advanced technologies will sooner or later be too tempted by primal urges to not succumb to their powers. Our stats are already indicative of this. If we don’t have some way to balance our time with technology now while we still have some distance to it, it will be too late in the future. With the advent of artificial intelligence, virtual/augmented reality, and algorithms intertwined with our every day lives, we are heading into a future where the line between reality and the digital world will become even blurrier.

We have to start having “offline days” like we have “work out” days. Consistently. Every week. A one-week/month detox — while admirable and definitely better than nothing — is not consistent enough to keep us balanced on a longer basis, especially if we return to infinitely using our devices after being back from that detox period. The offline days have to be a permanent part of a new, balanced lifestyle that works with technology, in tandem with it, not apart from it. The more you implement them into your life, the more you will realize — as I do — that they serve me to not only rejuvenate my mind, but to build the muscle of my willpower (trust me, when implementing the 12-hour model; your brain is basically lifting “willpower-weights” when you decide to not obey your compulsion to check your phone on offline days). And just a side note by the way: after that initial 1–2 month period of uncomfortable withdrawal period of boredom, I realized that this discipline is perhaps the easiest discipline of all. Easier than working out. Easier than eating healthy. Easier than brahmacharya. The low-but steady impact of negative dopamine impact is easier to counter than the high-impact dopamine depletion of pornography, or the relatively high-demanding activity of working out. This is not some other-worldly non-doable arena that says we are doomed to be tethered to our devices for all eternity since there is no going back to “old times”. It is very doable. I’ve been doing it consistently for 4 years now. 12 hours. Every week. Yearly. The 90’s — and I’m bringing that decade up now since I am a millennial; the last generation that remembers a world without the Internet — is very much accessible today. You just have to start somewhere. If you’re not able to do 12 hours a week, bring media time down to 15 hours or 18 hours. Anything is better than 30 hours. If not three offline days, you can try one. One offline day is better than none. Consciously using time-management models to have boundaries for technology, outside of work, like we do for everything else is key to a world that no longer affords us to unconsciously use our devices. We still have time, and are not yet in that all-encompassing singularity-moment where the Internet is tethered biologically to our brains. You can still bring balance back into your life. Now is the time (not later).

I am Niket, “Nick”, Sharma, a writer/rapper/teacher, who by the turn of the decade started developing a true passion for balance with technology. I yearn to tell people about what I’ve discovered on my own path to balance with the Internet. In this article, content-wise, you are reading a small excerpt from my upcoming book “The Most Practical Guide You Will Ever Read On How To Cut Your Internet, Smartphone and Media Usage”. I love writing articles such as these, and more on this topic is coming.

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