Digital withdrawal day: why it is so important to get away from your cell phone from time to time

It is in search of a healthier relationship with the technology that since 2009 is celebrated on the day of digital withdrawal (also known as the day of digital disconnection), a date that proposes to spend 24 hours away from our mobile devices and PCs to resume perhaps forgotten activities, such as going for a walk, reading a book or talking face to face with our loved ones.

What is digital addiction?

“How any addiction, It is a behavior that escapes the person’s control, although he is always believes that he has controlled it”He said in conversation with Commerce Lupe Jara, teacher at the PUCP Faculty of Psychology. “In the case of digital addiction, it is a compulsive behavior that steals productivity, forcing it to stay in this virtual activity.”

Behaviors that the specialist highlighted are not coincidence, since ‘apps’ such as Tiktok or Facebook are specially designed, for their business model, to maintain the attention of its users and promote interactions, promoting a possible dependence. Meanwhile, video games are also designed (searching for synonym) to provide their users with dopamine as a way to maintain their attention, also promoting the need to play more.

For Beatriz Canessa, head of the Department of Psychopedagogical Orientation of the University of Lima, digital addiction can basically be measured in relation to three variables:

• Dependence: The subject needs that digital resource to work in your day to day.
• Tolerance: The person you need to use the object of your addiction more and more to feel satisfied.
• Abstinence: When you do not have access to that digital resource, the subject presents emotional reactions such as anxiety, irritability and even physical reactions such as sweating, accelerated breathing and even tachycardia.

Despite this, Canessa warned that digital media should not be “satanized”, but that care of not using them harmful. “Today in our work, in our academic life and in our social life we ​​use digital resources,” he said. “The problem is when the person needs these digital tools to calm down emotionally and that their use does not allow them to perform efficiently in their daily duties. That is when it makes the difference from regular consumption to an addiction. “

In that aspect, the day of digital abstinence serves as a perfect time to highlight whether or not we carry a healthy relationship with technology. “Faced with this date, perhaps some will find that they feel anxiety by not having the cell phone in their hand,” said psychologist Lupe Jara. “A dedicated day like this can highlight the problem, yes you can or may not achieve this disconnection.”

What benefits makes me disconnect?

But there are reasons to try, since doing what is sometimes called a ‘digital detoxification’ can have multiple positive effects on people’s health, from improving their emotional well -being to their quality of sleep. Here some of the benefits.

1. Emotional well -being: Exposure to digital, especially social networks and news, exposes people to people to information that can generate excessive concern and anxiety. Meanwhile, social networks expose people to constant comparisons, which can generate tension, pressure and stress.
2. A greater connection with oneself: It allows to build your acceptance and self -esteem not only depending on what you see day by day on social networks, what brings together the most likes.
3. Improve sleep quality: It is known that prolonged exposure in the light of the screens interferes with the main melatonin, hormone that induces us to sleep. Then disconnecting allows us to exercise a better rest, which in turn favors better emotional well -being.
4. Rest from cognitive stimulation: Faced with the frantic use of digital, where performing multiple tasks simultaneously is custom, disconnecting allows you to concentrate more fully in a single activity, avoiding constant sensory exhaustion.
5. Cultivate your interpersonal relationships: conversing with a person face to face – without cell phone in hand – allows to forge stronger personal connections, as well as has benefits for people’s mental health.

A new balance

Knowing the benefits of disconnecting, there is a doubt what is the perfect balance of the time we are or not exposed to digital media. Unfortunately for those who want an easy answer, there is no formula that is valid for all people, since depending on their occupations they have to spend more or less time in front of a computer.

What Lupe Jara and Beatriz Canessa emphasized is the need to spend at least two hours disconnected before sleeping for better sleep health. In that aspect, A base balance could be to keep at least half of the day (12 hours) disconnected, including 7 to 9 am which is the recommended period to sleep.

Something to emphasize is that as Rome, which was not built in one day, acquiring a healthier relationship with digital will be a matter of constant effort.

“To be able to achieve this digital disconnection or have it as a habit, it is very important to practice every day. It’s like training in a gym, in a week you will not achieve your goal, ”said Canessa. “The idea is to put gradual goals, as first leave digital half an hour before sleeping, then an hour and successively. Go practicing it every day allows you to install this new routine”.

And what can you do with time away from cell phone and computer? The possibilities are endless. We previously recommend the walks or resume reading habits, but you can also practice activities more typical of relaxation such as yoga or meditation. “The boredom can be productive,” said Lupe Jara.

“The idea is that you have healthy alternatives and activities that do not depend on the digital,” Beatriz Canessa told this newspaper. “And while you can use the digital to distract yourself, you can also use your own resources as a distractor. For example, concentrate on five smells of your surroundings or other stimuli that you are experiencing … this is something adaptive and would be the basis for true digital disconnection. ”