It’s no surprise that we are living in a fast paced world where we want and need everything to be instant! Some of us have become immune to this lifestyle and it has become our norm, whilst others are trying their best to avoid fast paced microwave living!
Don’t get me wrong, I love how technology keeps us informed, and keeps us connected socially with others who live across the world. But there is an app for basically everything! Apps to remind you to drink more water, apps that track your steps, apps that can photoshop you into a super model, apps that keep you socially connected, and apps for apps – “app-ception”.
However, on the downside apps can be all-consuming and distracting. We start to refresh our social media apps every two minutes and make sure that we aren’t missing out on anything! We browse our apps religiously, first thing in the morning, during the day, while we’re in the bathroom, while we are chatting to a friend, before we go to bed. We even wake up during the night if a notification goes off for one of our apps, and of course we need to check it out , because sleep can wait!
DO YOUR APPS CONSUME YOU?
Are apps ruling our lives and negatively influencing us? I ask that question because I am currently asking myself that. Upon asking myself that, I discovered the following about being consumed with fast-paced app living:
- We become reliant on apps for everything.
- We are social online, but feel uncomfortable being social in person.
- We can easily waste hours on social media or an apps, when we could be doing something that can feed into us positively.
- We can live vicariously through other people online.
- We find our confidence and affirmation through social media apps.
- We idolise others and how they live online.
- We start to compare ourselves with they way others present their lives online.
- We take offence when people don’t respond to a message within seconds.
- We become impatient in the real world, because we want everyone and everything to respond like an app.
It’s sad, but how true is it for some of us? I get that we can’t avoid technology alltogether. However, if it starts to have a negative impact on our lives, then maybe we need to stop and pause for a second, and assess wether it has an unhealthy hold over us.
Apps should not control or define us, yet at times we let it. If this is the case for you, maybe have a bit of a technology or app detox, to regroup and gain fresh perspective.