The Challenge of Setting Boundaries With Your Tech

Do you rule it, or does it rule you?

As I write this, it’s nearly 9pm on a Sunday night. Oops. My 8pm airplane mode curfew for my phone has gone unmet.

And not for the first time, either.

Since I went for 10 days last year without phones, internet, and even SPEAKING to another human being, I made a silent promise to myself to be more boundaried with my tech, as the experience was glorious.

I’ve done fairly well, for the most part. I’ve deleted my old Facebook profile and made a new, plain version, along with installing the Newsfeed eradicator for desktop.

I plainly REFUSE to install Facebook messenger, even after at least five of my friends inviting me to it in a Facebook conversation.

I’ve come off Instagram. Yes, I love Twitter, and have used it even more over the past year I suspect. But as I’m a remote worker, my income depends on me being online and ‘selling myself’, as cumbersome as that might feel.

You see, tech can be a double-edged sword.

Whilst we can use it to free ourselves from wage slavery, earn in multiple currencies and enjoy the potential to earn whilst we’re sleeping, we certainly do have to make sure it knows it’s place, and to know who’s boss.

I’ve learned that we need to set boundaries with technology, before it starts dictating to us. Kris Gage wrote a brilliant piece on response times recently, and it is this sentiment that shows just how wedded we are to our phones. Or our laptops. Or to just being connected.

It’s the ultimate paradox. The tech gives us the ability to connect with others across time and space yet we need to provide a strong enough boundary to let ourselves be separate enough for it not to be detrimental to our well-being.

And how can we define ‘tech addicts’- where the user has gone so far down the rabbit hole that their family and friends have had to pull them out of their online…