Scroll down: Why your screen time habits aren't as bad as you think | Digital Media

DDigital technology is now tightly woven into the fabric of society, but for many of us, that doesn't necessarily seem like a good thing. As the number of screens increases, anxiety What we feel about them has become more salient and pressing. But what if you're focusing on the wrong kind of worry? Here, his 5 frequently asked questions about screen time and their answers will help you frame your relationship with technology more accurately .

Should I worry about screen time?

The thing about screen time is that once you start thinking seriously about what it actually is; pretty meaningless concept – Therefore, this in itself is not something to be overly concerned about. Because of its simplicity, screen time is a compelling and pervasive idea that has saturated conversations about online life. However, the time we spend on some form of screen-based technology does not reflect what we are doing with that time, the quality of the content we are consuming, why we are consuming it, or whether the content is It doesn't tell you anything about what your situation is. we are using it. By focusing on those things, rather than simply how much screen you use, you can better understand where the benefits and risks lie.

Are we dependent on smartphones?

We often talk about different types of digital “addictions”, such as smartphone addiction, internet addiction, and social media addiction. None of these are formal clinical diseases, and there is no widely agreed upon medical or scientific opinion. definition, So in a strict medical sense, no, you are not addicted to your smartphone. However, we tend to focus on the enormous amount of time we spend on screens, leading us to worry about how much time is too much, making it difficult to talk about our relationship with our smartphones. Something other than addiction terminology. This situation is further exacerbated by the fact that we often use the word “addiction” in a non-clinical, everyday sense. What it actually means is that you really like something, but maybe you feel as if you've experienced something. overdid it.

This is an issue that also confounds the research literature. That is, because we frame public conversations about digital technologies in terms of addiction, many researchers have made the assumption that addiction necessarily exists. Over the past few decades, a vast amount of research literature has accumulated that attempts to classify and define various digital addictions, but the implicit assumption that they actually exist makes it difficult to define them. There was little attempt to understand it critically and consistently. To study characteristics and to develop sensible theoretical frameworks for studying them. Instead, research is increasingly moving toward the medicalization of normal everyday actions. That is, I wonder if people identify things they do with digital technology and do it too much, and therefore when using digital technology, too much must be addictive.

None of this is to say that some people are not at risk of developing toxic or maladaptive relationships with digital technologies. In fact, for the majority of us, we are not dependent on our smartphones.

Have screens stolen our attention?

This is what we are often told: digital technology is designed to steal our attention, thereby disrupting our attention spans.there is Story The researchers claim that the human attention span is about a second shorter than that of a goldfish, and that digital technology is to blame. There's nothing true about that story. Our attention spans haven't decreased, and goldfish don't actually have short attention spans to begin with. Like many concerns about screens, this concern is based on a misunderstanding of what attention is.

From a cognitive perspective, attention is a very complex phenomenon, and although there is a large amount of excellent research on it (literally thousands of papers), it is difficult to understand what attention really is and how to define it. There are still some fundamentally unanswered questions about how best to characterize it as such. In popular science writing, it is often oversimplified as a kind of spotlight that can be moved to focus on important or interesting tasks. However, we find it very difficult to shift our attention between multiple tasks. So smartphones can be a distraction, with each message sounding like a siren's call, tempting us to check our social messages, so we can't help but do it easily. . You lose focus on what's important.

Therein lies the kernel of truth – Featured spotlight model This is one of the most famous and well-studied approaches to understanding visual attention in psychological research. However, attention is not simply “grasped” or “distracted” by salient features in the environment. Top-down information is also important, such as specific goals and motivations at the time.Ann new research field Over the past few years, we have suggested that attention might instead be better characterized in terms of a “priority map” system. This means that attention can be allocated proportionately and distributed across multiple areas, rather than being something that can only be focused on a single thing (and thus potentially “stolen”). some tasks. In other words, screens are just one part of our attention ecosystem. Screens can sometimes have a positive effect and sometimes a negative one, but it depends on a wealth of other factors around us.

So why do we feel like digital technology is of no use to us?

This question gets to the heart of why it's so difficult to talk about our relationship with screens. It's all well and good to say they're not addictive and don't actually steal our attention, but that narrative doesn't fit well with the real-life experiences many of us have. Who has ever felt like they spent way too much time mindlessly scrolling through content they didn't really take in or didn't really want to see? Time they didn't really want to spend? There may also be. When you look around and see everyone using their cell phones and not engaging with anything around them, that's not appropriate at all. So when someone argues that screens are inherently bad for humans, it's understandable that we easily agree with them.

However, the reality is much more complex. One consistent findings In a study examining the negative effects of digital technology, researchers asked people to subjectively report their own screen time, along with self-report measures such as mental health and alertness, and researchers found correlations between: That's right. is much larger than if more objective measures were used. Part of the reason for this is related to the so-called “estimated impact” theory. We are repeatedly exposed to very strong negative stories about the effects of screens in the media, which changes our attitude towards screens and ultimately causes us to color our skin. our own personal experience.

Over time, we begin to feel bad about our own technology use (and develop a negative view of it more generally). The oft-stated and uncritically accepted assumption is that it's not because it's actually bad for us that it's actually bad for us, but because it's actually bad for us. Become familiar because there is.

So you're saying there's actually nothing to worry about?

Not at all. There are very real problems with the way new digital technologies are developed and implemented, and the associated decision-making processes often move significantly away from social responsibility. But it could also be said that we spend a lot of time and energy worrying (and researching) the wrong kinds of questions. The question of whether screen time is good or bad, or how much screen time is too much, doesn't really make sense. Because these questions do not reflect the reality of how we use digital technology.

Instead, a new line the study They take a more nuanced approach, asking, for example, why some people struggle online while others in seemingly similar situations are doing better. Rather than thinking of screens as inherently harmful or maladaptive, it's better to think of them as habit-forming. Habits are neutral in themselves, but can be good or bad for us depending on various other circumstances and situational factors. Importantly, changing habits is within our own control. It will take time and effort, but if there are any points in the digital diet that we are not satisfied with, we have the power to remove them without losing at the same time. All the good things that online life gives us.

At the very least, one of the main reasons we need to move away from panic-based rhetoric about screens being a negative force is that such concerns are being sensationalized by the tech industry instead of promoting positive action. This means that you may be dismissed as an idiot. Instead, if we can have a more rational, evidence-based discussion about screens, if we can look at the balance of benefits and risks in a more intelligent way, we can more effectively put pressure on the industry to make meaningful change. You can apply it.

Many of the digital technologies we are concerned about are technologies that bring joy and convenience. This means user well-being must be at the center of all design considerations. But we also need better research. Research that moves away from over-reliance on self-reported data and instead combines meaningful industry data with appropriate theory and objective data obtained from individual users in a more targeted manner. This may seem like a pipe dream, but we're already starting to see some research showing it's possible.

Therefore, we need to start asking better questions of the industry and of ourselves in our research. And by answering these questions, we can better understand where the benefits lie in our own screen use, where we might want to change, and how to make those changes most effectively. It will be.

• Pete Etchells is Professor of Psychology and Science Communication at Bath Spa University and author of the following books: Unlocked: The real science of screen time (and how to spend it better), published by Little, Brown (£16.99). In order to support guardian and observer Order your copy at guardianbookshop.com.Shipping charges may apply