The headless pigeon
And the productivity paradox
There’s this one issue with living without a smartphone that I need to address: I’m getting way less done!
Yes, my output has dropped. I check emails less, respond slower, generally miss stuff that I’d normally catch on the fly. Also I miss the news from day to day, I miss whatever people are talking about, I miss the memes. To be honest, if productivity is your metric, the dumb phone loses.
But here’s what I was pondering on today’s morning walk with Brego: my emotional state is remarkably steady. Before, a walk was never just a walk, it was punctuated by an email (maybe some negative feedback on my sketches giving my confidence a little scratch), or a news headline (that darkened my view on humanity), or a message from a friend that sent my thoughts spinning in some new direction. A constant (low-level) emotional rollercoaster. I think many of us have been riding this rollercoaster for the last fifteen plus years. Maybe without really registering its costs.
Today, my walk was just a walk. I did actually pass a headless pigeon by the path, and yes, that was a … small, grim observation. You may call that too an emotional distraction. Well, yes, it was. It made me feel discomfort (and it made Brego really eager to investigate), but … it still fitted into my thought flow. It didn’t pull me out, it settled in memory alongside these other ongoing reflections/associations.
This quality of attention reminds me of childhood. Well, not exactly of childhood, more of … my own thinking during childhood. Something with being totally in my thoughts, the dreamy logic, the jumpy improvisation and associations. Not being pulled away.
Digital interruptions don’t just steal time. They stir something more corrosive: a low hum of questions about your own worth, your standing, the risks. That’s the emotional bubble most of us have been living inside. I barely noticed it until it stopped.
So, yes, I’m accomplishing less. And I’m starting to wonder if that’s actually the wrong measure.
For further reading:
Blocking mobile internet on smartphones improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being.
”We conducted a month-long randomized controlled trial to investigate how removing constant access to the internet through smartphones might impact psychological functioning.”
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/4/2/pgaf017/8016017