digital detox
What is it and who does it
Push messages, messenger services and Co.: It is good for your mental health to detoxify yourself digitally from time to time.
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Keep your hands off your cell phone! Easier said than done? Anyone who deliberately takes screen breaks is doing themselves a favour. That’s behind it.
Doing a digital detoxification or so-called digital detox is currently in vogue. But opinions differ on what that means exactly. While for some it is enough to consciously give up screen time for a few hours a day, others withdraw completely from social media for a certain period of time. Therefore, the targeted offline times are good for your health.
think clearly
There are now many prominent examples of digital time-outs, and they all report on how good the digital detox has been for them. Last February, the singer Max Giesinger (33) said to spot on news about his four-month break from the digital screen: “I can really advise everyone to take a break from social media for a few weeks at least once a year. I got me last year on my birthday [3. Oktober 2020, Red.] decided not to go online again until it feels like it. That turned into four months. It was very exciting to see how much time I suddenly had again and how creative I became. Suddenly the ideas were bubbling up and I didn’t have such a ‘permanent haze’ in my head. Many believe that you have to be permanently connected to the whole world. But the result is exactly the opposite: you are no longer really there. ‘Zombie mode’ on,” says the musician.
However, not everyone finds the digital detox project equally easy: singer Lena Meyer-Landrut indicated at the end of November 2019 that she wanted to withdraw from social media. A few weeks later she reported with a provisional last post on Instagram: “I hereby say goodbye, go to a little social media detox”. But shortly thereafter, the 2010 ESC winner returned to the Internet before making the next attempt a good year later: Meyer-Landrut deleted her entire Instagram feed overnight in May last year.
When you only see the world through the screen
Lena is now back on social media like Giesinger or the international superstar Ed Sheeran (30), who took a digital break for the first time in 2017: “I only see the world through a screen and no longer through it my eyes”, the singer wrote on Instagram at the time. In 2020 he repeated the Digital Detox to “travel, write and read”.
Sheeran sets an example with this, what about the German Techniker Krankenkasse recommends it: Once you have decided exactly what the time-out should look like, it is important to “plan activities for the newly created time. These should be things that you enjoy and/or are good for you, for example going for a walk go swimming, be artistically active, read, cook, play board games with the roommates, solve puzzles – whatever feels good.”
Apps to escape app dependency? This works out!
Constant availability puts us on constant alert and with the fear of missing something, the digital devices magically attract us again and again. It is not easy to resist this – DAK, AOK and Co. all point out that users ruin their attention span in the long run.
If you can’t do it on your own and need help, you can get help from the health insurance companies. Barmer, for example, has been offering the so-called “Digi-Camp” since 2017, which aims to train young people in the responsible use of smartphones and social media.
Last but not least, apps like “SPACE – Break phone addiction, stay focused” (Android / iOS) or “Digital Detox: Focus & Live” (Android) help with self-control.