In sound engineering there’s a concept called signal to noise ratio. It refers to the level of desired sound – the ‘signal’, such as an instrument – relative to the ‘noise floor’, which is the amount of hiss, or hum, or underlying undesirable sound. Part of the art of good audio mixing is managing equipment and settings in such a way that optimises the signal to noise ratio, so we have plenty of ‘clean’ instrument sound and a minimum of noise ‘dirt’.
Isn’t that an interesting parallel with modern life?
Gen X and older will remember being warned of the dangers of TV – that too much would rot our brains – which now, in this century, seems adorably innocent. Increasingly it feels like we’re pulled into a lawless parallel online existence, our attention spans mined and mental health degraded by algorithms cynically designed to entrap and addict our brains – brains which have barely had a moment, in the vast timespans of evolutionary terms, to adapt to cope with the onslaught. It’s scarcely surprising that there’s a pandemic of mental ill-health.
There are days when I wish we could switch off the internet and un-invent AI. It feels like these things have got away from us. We’re not even wise enough to manage our own intelligence yet, and then we create something artificial that’s smarter than us? Sometimes our collective lack of wisdom – which is very different from intelligence – seems to know no bounds.
Then I remind myself – these things are just tools. A knife can be used to prepare vegetables to feed your family, or it can be used to kill. The tool itself is just a thing. Irresponsible use by us humans, is the problem.
There’s no doubt: misuse of the internet spreads hate, drama, lies, degradation, discrimination.
And yet… it lets us connect, communicate, navigate, share art, inspiration, create helpful systems and access enormous vaults of education and learning.
When Tim Berners-Lee invented the web and said ‘this is for everyone’ – well, yes, he meant everyone. And that allows for harm and irresponsible use, because, well – humans.
There’s a hell of a lot of noise out there.
And, there are some wonderful signals.
So the trick is in becoming extremely deliberate and discerning in how we amplify the helpful signal, and turn down the noise. Re-conditioning ourselves to engage very consciously and notice when we’re getting sucked into an unintended scroll, lured into frittering away priceless time – which is our actual lives, after all – on things which aren’t actually important to us.
The apps are designed to outsmart us; to hijack our neural pathways and neuroses and addict us. I’ve been experimenting with new approaches to using tech, rather than it using me, and so far I have to say – MASSIVE life upgrade, which has reaped such benefits already that it’s now more about the intrinsic satisfaction of these benefits, rather than discipline, which is making them stick (which is the master key to real lasting change).
My changes:
- Thinking of my phone as a tool, rather than a source of entertainment.
- It lives in a basket on a high shelf in the kitchen, where I can hear it ring and reach it but not see it (research has shown a marked difference in the ability to concentrate when we can even see the bloody things, even if they’re out of reach and switched off!)
- I look at mail and social media within Mon-Fri, 9-5 only, and only while standing up so I can’t get too comfy.
- I’ve removed mail notifications from the phone screen – I need the app there for work when I’m out, but generally email is now a laptop thing and I don’t see that red badge when I’m, say, answering a call from my Mum or reading a text from a mate at the weekend.
- I’ve put social apps on the furthest page of my home screen, in a folder marked ‘Mon-Fri 9-5’.
It’s become about the difference between deliberate, intentional use, and getting drawn in to accidentally giving my attention to things I didn’t mean to. For me, some apps like music and podcasts are just tools and I’m only ever going to use them for a specific purpose, whereas socials and mail can hijack me if I’m not cautious in my use. These particular boundaries are personal to me and we’re all different – but what might be helpful for you?
The benefits I’m experiencing:
- Vastly better sleep, partly because of boundaries and no ‘last checks’ before bed, but also because of generally reduced usage thanks to these boundaries – I don’t think we really understand the half of what tech is doing to our brains.
- Less brain chatter, making my head generally more peaceful and meaning I go much deeper, much quicker in meditation.
- Getting my wasted time back to do lovely things like read books.
- Better quality of real-life connections.
- A very satisfying sense of being a free-range, organic human living in the physical world and present moment, giving much fuller attention to who and what’s in front of me and what truly matters to me.
Honestly? I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say I feel like I’ve reclaimed my life.
It seems that optimising the signal to noise ratio is a smart idea far beyond the world of audio.
What’s your experience with this? Some questions to reflect on:
- Do you ever find your attention getting hijacked, or mood changed, by social media? How does that feel? Has your attention span been affected by being online?
- What’s your relationship with different modes of online activity?
- What sort of content do you see in your feeds? Is it helpful, uplifting, insightful; or does it leave you feeling ‘less than’, dissatisfied, or anxious?
- Do you feel you have a good line in the sand between staying informed, and over-consuming news?
- Do you set clear boundaries around how and when you are online? Are there times when you live solely in the real world, ‘free range and organic’, offline?
- How much of your online time do you consider truly beneficial to your mental health and overall wellbeing? How could you improve the signal to noise ratio of the content you choose?