Beating Technology Addiction

0:00Krutika Adatia:Hello, and welcome back to On Your Marks from ACCA. I'm Krutika Adatia and I'm a chartered accountant. I now support accountancy students through their training. And as an educator, I'm regularly up close and personal with some of the common issues people face while studying for and sitting their accountancy exams. So in this series for ACCA, I'm chatting to experts about strategies we can all use when facing some of life's challenges. This week we're looking at something I'm pretty sure most of us are familiar with to some degree or another, technology addiction. Why is it so easy to be distracted by our phones? How do we know if we are truly addicted? And what tips and tricks are there to help us maintain a healthier relationship with technology?

0:54Krutika Adatia:This is On Your Marks because you'll never know until you try. I got my first phone when I was 16. It wasn't a smartphone because they didn't exist then. That came much later when I was at university. Looking back, I remember consciously switching my phone off or leaving it in another room when I needed to focus on deep study. Even then, I think I had some sense of the addictive potential of these devices. Fast forward to today and our smartphones and tablets are far more advanced, with a constant stream of distractions from social media apps to email notifications. At the same time, technology can also be a powerful tool for learning, whether through mobile study platforms or useful apps like ACCA's Student Accountant. So this is a nuanced space. To help unpack the balance between distraction and support when it comes to phone and tech, I'm delighted to be speaking with Professor Phil Reed. Phil is a professor of psychology at Swansea University and he's fascinated by the impact technology addiction can have on us.

2:07Krutika Adatia:Hi, Phil. So great to have you join us today for this conversation.

2:11Professor Phil Reed:Oh, that's great. Thank you very much for inviting me. It's always a pleasure to talk about digital technology.

2:16Krutika Adatia:So Phil, let's start at the very beginning. Why are our phones and digital devices so addictive?

2:24Professor Phil Reed:We struggle a lot with understanding addiction to anything really. And there are always two aspects to addiction. The first is the thing to which people are addicted. Now, when we're talking about some substance, there are always some kind of chemical reasons why that substance might hook people in. So whether it's nicotine or alcohol or a drug of misuse, the physical chemical properties explain a little bit about it. When we're talking about behavioral addictions that psychologists like to call process addictions, people become a little bit wary about using that word addiction because they can't necessarily see that direct chemical physical link to why people would get hooked to this. So I think you have to look at what it's doing for the person. And this is true of substances as well. What role is that thing playing in their life? So there are always two aspects to explaining addiction. The first is the thing in itself and the reason why digital devices are addictive. People are attracted to colorful, well- designed objects. But that can't explain it in itself. There are aspects to the way the digital

3:55Professor Phil Reed:platform interacts with us, which is set up and programmed to be optimal to keep us going back to it. But also for the person, there usually has to be some kind of need, some kind of void that that behavior is filling. So it's a very tricky and complex question to answer. There's not a straightforward thing. You don't pick up a phone and become instantly addicted. You don't take a drink and become instantly addicted. There's an interaction between the thing in itself and what's going on in that person's life.

4:34Krutika Adatia:Yeah. Thank you. And I appreciate that it is such a difficult question to answer. And you reference kind of nicotine and drug addiction, which in my mind feel like, well, obvious bad things, I suppose. So I guess I wanted to ask, what is it that makes tech addiction a bad thing or is it?

4:52Professor Phil Reed:Addictions are defined in a number of different ways. One of the ways they're defined is it has to disrupt somebody's life. And most psychological problems are defined in this way. If it's not a problem, it's not a problem. So addiction is really about disruption. To what extent is that thing that you're focusing on becoming your primary relationship so that everything else in your life becomes secondary? So with smartphones, really why it's bad is it depends on the extent to which it's disrupting your life. If you're feeling bad about using it, and many people do, it's a problem. If other people in your life, which is more often the case, are feeling bad about you using it, then it's a problem.

5:55Krutika Adatia:At what point do we know that we are addicted to our devices or our phones? Because you mentioned the distraction and the time that you spend and is it creating a problem? So what's the line to actually say you're addicted to it?

6:12Professor Phil Reed:Addiction is very specific. Not only does it involve a disruption to your life, so if it's impacting your relationships, if it's impacting your work, it's a problem. But addiction also has to have another two components to it. The first one is called tolerance, and that means that over time in order to get the same effect that you used to get, you have to do the activity or take the substance more and more often. So if you're noticing, " Hang on a minute, I'm doing more mobile phoning or doing more whatever it is, social media reading than I used to do." And it's creeping up and up, that could be telling you you're developing tolerance. The second issue is withdrawal. So when you're not on that device, do you start to feel a bit twitchy? Do you start to feel a bit anxious? Do you start checking your pocket or looking around for it? Do you feel a bit nervy? That could be signs that you're getting withdrawal effects. Studies suggest that those people who do use it excessively, when you wrestle their mobile phones off them and keep it away from them from a few hours, and you measure their heart rate, their blood pressure, their

7:53Professor Phil Reed:skin conductance, which is basically how much you're sweating, all of those things increase. It's exactly the same physical reaction that you would get if you stop taking a sedative or a tranquilizer or even an opiate drug. Your system would increase its activity because it's artificially being suppressed by the drug, or in this case, by our activity on mobile devices. Most people use them as a tranquilizer. They may not feel like that, but that's what it's doing to the body.

8:36Krutika Adatia:Wow. So tolerance and withdrawal, and I guess those are the things our listeners need to look out for. I mean, as you were talking, I was just thinking about our listeners who are potentially students studying for exams, Phil. So there's likely to be an element of anxiety and stress that they are already experiencing because of the pressures of wanting to pass the exam or studying towards an exam and a qualification. So what impact does stress then have on the addictive behaviors?

9:09Professor Phil Reed:Stress is one of the great triggers. Under conditions of stress, if you think about what happens to us, we start to feel all of those physical aspects in our own bodies. We start to feel uncomfortable. Subjectively, the mind starts racing. We start jumping around from one thing to another in our heads, " Should I do this? Should I do that? What should I do?" One of the things that relieves that can be disappearing into a virtual world. It stops all of that real world stress, removes us from that situation and it's an easy, quick fix. Of course, that just makes the problem worse because when you come back to the real world, all of the stuff that caused you to enter your addiction is still there, and probably worse, because now your exam is 12 hours closer and you still haven't done anything.

10:21Professor Phil Reed:Sadly, items of addiction, like digital devices, are an easy way to relieve it. Under periods of stress, that's when they can relapse.

10:34Krutika Adatia:So what would you advise our listeners to kind of manage that? I mean, I mentioned at the beginning that when I got my first mobile phone, I sort of realized the addictive potential that it could potentially have. So I would try and switch it off or put it in another room. So are there things like that that our students, our listeners could do to try and avoid going down that rabbit hole of just scrolling or using it as a distraction, going into that virtual kind of environment to escape what they're meant to be doing in reality?

11:06Professor Phil Reed:Yeah. I think the things you've described are very, very sensible. You don't have to be on 24 hours a day. You don't have to be contactable 24 hours a day. I know that's tricky, especially when some of your listeners will undoubtedly become self- employed. They will work that way. They'll not want to miss clients. But even self- employed people need time away from work. It's okay to be connected 6, 8, 10 hours a day if you know why you're connected. But when you don't need it, put it away. Put those boundaries in place and stick to them.

12:00Krutika Adatia:How can we put those boundaries in place? Is the fact that we are working in a more digital environment exacerbating that tech addiction as well?

12:12Professor Phil Reed:I think the difficulty here is that when people are working remotely, there's a degree of social disconnectedness that they're going to experience. Knowing work, we need times to be on our own. We need times of privacy. We need times of quiet to get on with things. But also, part of work is being able to talk to colleagues, to interact with colleagues, to generate a social bond, which can be work bond, where it can just be stress relief as well, having a chat about something. Working remotely kind of excludes people from this. The digital connection you get doesn't necessarily replace that real world social connection. But if you can maintain real physical connection with other people, it reduces your urge to use the digital device to try and do that. Just take a bit of effort to go out to talk to people, but even the most introverted person will actually gain something from social contact, even if they don't necessarily want to do it. But because it requires effort, people retreat from it very easily, retreat to the digital device. It's not a substitute. And the studies tell us this. People become lonelier when the only interaction they have

14:00Professor Phil Reed:is through digital means.

14:02Krutika Adatia:Often we turn to these tools to feel some kind of connection, but it's not always achieving that. And that's a really interesting point, because in a previous series we spoke to a guest who was an expert in voicing about connection and the need for people to actually have that face- to- face time. And students are often looking for study buddies, that they're looking for a community of students who are also studying at the same time as them, so that they can share their struggles, their challenges, maybe learn from one another as well. So are we saying then essentially that our phones and digital devices perhaps aren't always the best way to achieve that?

14:46Professor Phil Reed:They're a way to achieve it, but they're far from optimal. You're quite right, having somebody to study with is better than not and having digital contact is better than having no contact at all. But ideally, those study groups would be local so that maybe they could meet up once in a while in real time. That doesn't have to be every week or even every month. But once in a while, knowing that that's a possibility, is a nice safety blanket. And sometimes the possibility is all that people need and may not use it and that's fine. But that kind of studying group, very, very good idea to overcome that digital isolation.

15:43Krutika Adatia:Now, when students are studying, if potentially they cut back on their phone usage, let's say, why can it feel surprisingly uncomfortable and more stressful when a student does try and manage their kind of tech addiction or phone addiction and try and reduce it?

16:04Professor Phil Reed:There will be some withdrawal effects if you've been overusing it. These will pass. It'll be very uncomfortable for a while, and that discomfort will probably get worse before it gets better. Being uncomfortable is not necessarily a bad thing in itself. Feeling stressed, feeling anxious, it's just a feeling. There's nothing physical. Even if you feel your heart rate increasing, it's just stress. It will pass and you need to work through that and sit with it. It will go away. The second thing is harder.

16:44Professor Phil Reed:Sometimes it's not the physical product of withdrawal that makes people feel uncomfortable, but there are some people who fear missing out. And we have that thing called FOMO, a fear of (inaudible) -

16:58Krutika Adatia:FOMO.

16:58Professor Phil Reed:That usually stems from some other issues that that person might have, and that probably needs a bit of reflection on the person itself. And I would actually put the case for what I would call JOMO, which is the joy of missing out. There's a joy to missing out. You don't have to be connected and you should relish the fact that you're missing out. I mean, how many of us actually relish missing the news these days because we just don't want to hear it. If you get through that withdrawal, and that shouldn't last more than a few days, if you're still feeling anxious and twitching, you ask yourself, "

17:49Professor Phil Reed:Well, am I doing all the things I absolutely have to on my digital device? Am I connecting with clients? Am I connecting with my tutors? Am I connecting with the material? Am I doing everything that I need to?" If you are, then that stress is probably coming from you thinking, " What's going on? Am I missing something?"

18:16Krutika Adatia:Let it go. The song from Frozen just came up in my head there, Let It Go. Now, actually, as you were talking, when you mentioned FOMO, I'm just thinking about the notifications that I often see pinging up on my phone, especially if, let's say, I've posted on a social media channel, whether it's LinkedIn or Instagram, and there's something so compelling about wanting to go back in and check, how many likes have I got? How many comments have I got? So what is it about instant feedback that makes it so hard for us to ignore and not go in and check?

18:51Professor Phil Reed:You know, that instant feedback is a sign of you think you're controlling something, you think you've done something and you get that immediate outcome. It's like when you're waiting at one of those pedestrian crossings and you want to cross the road and you press the button and the green person comes on on the other side. And you think, " I did that. I made that happen." And we all get that instant sense of power that we have made the green person light up on the other side and that feels good. Of course it's nothing to do with us whatsoever. But we are to some extent hardwired to respond to instant feedback. But alongside that physical reaction, that reflex that we get, is all of these feelings that come with it, and control is one of them. And most people like to feel some degree of control, and this to them seems like a way of getting it. Of course it's not. And what you've got to remember is that when somebody likes something that you've written, you don't necessarily get to know when they've liked it. So it's not immediate feedback. This feedback is delivered to us whenever the social media company thinks it's going to be most

20:31Professor Phil Reed:optimal to receive it. Like the green person at the control, nothing to do with you. This is the device on a timer. Somebody else has set that schedule up. Don't dance to its tune. So you might feel you're in control and that's why that's so powerful, you're not.

20:56Krutika Adatia:Yeah. And that delayed notification, actually I have noticed it because I have turned off my notifications, Phil, across my social media apps on my phone as a way to regain control for myself. And I do occasionally notice that when I haven't been using them for a little while, I'll pop in and I'll see on the notification backlog that, " Hey, somebody's liked this post," but actually I know that they liked it a little while back because I happened to have dipped into the app and seen that they'd liked it before. So really, really good point and an important one for our listeners to take on board. Just to sort of wrap up, I suppose. I mean, our students are often using their devices for study potentially as well. And I referenced that in the introduction. So they might be using certain learning apps or the ACCA Student Accountant app like I referenced earlier as well. So how can a student manage that? How do they manage the kind of mindless scrolling versus also using these devices for meaningful purposes?

22:02Professor Phil Reed:Again, it's going back to that thing we were talking about before about just being mindful about why you're using the device. Of course, we've all got to use digital devices, apps, platforms in our work. We all do that now. And that's fine, just because you're using it doesn't mean that you're going to have a problem with it. But as you've said, you're using it for a purpose, for an end. Keep that in mind, " I'm now doing this because," and then complete the sentence. If you find yourself doing it and when you put that sentence, " I'm doing this because," and you can't easily think of the because, there's no reason to be doing it. Remind yourself, I'm now doing this because the social media company wants me to do it. This is me being controlled. And if you are so keen on controlling yourself, and most of us are, then this is another way we can get back that control. Why don't you just turn off your social media and go and do something more interesting? Because you're just killing time now. If you put a rat in a box and you deliver food to the rat every two minutes, you can put a water bottle in there alongside,

23:26Professor Phil Reed:and what you see is the rat's drinking increases dramatically in between the delivery of the pellets. This is called schedule induced behavior. It's an adjunct behavior. It's not necessary. It just fills the time. Because a rat's in this box, it's got nothing else to do, looks around, sees the drink and thinks, " Oh, I may as well have a drink then." And the drinking increases to fill the time. A lot of our social media use is just that. It's just filling the gaps in between other things. You could fill that with anything. There are plenty of things that you can do. If you can't complete the sentence, "

24:14Professor Phil Reed:I'm doing this because," then there's no reason for you to be doing it. If you complete that, "I'm doing it because I'm enjoying it," great.

24:25Krutika Adatia:Thank you so much, Phil. I mean, just you've said so many wonderful things throughout this conversation by way of tips and golden nuggets, but if you were to summarize three top tips for managing tech addiction, what would those tips be for our listeners?

24:41Professor Phil Reed:My key thing would be just to say no. Be mindful about why you're doing it. Remind yourself of the other things you enjoy doing it, and primarily say no as long as you can.

24:52Krutika Adatia:Great tips. I feel like digital detox and saying no is probably something I can do with as well. But thank you so much, Phil. That's been a really insightful conversation.

25:02Professor Phil Reed:Well, thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

25:05Krutika Adatia:That's it from this episode of On Your Marks. Thank you, Phil, for chatting with me today. For more information about ACCA exams, you can go to www. accaglobal. com/ exams. And to watch the video version of this podcast, check out the link in the show notes. See you next time. I'm Krutika Adatia and this has been On Your Marks. On Your Marks is a Fresh Air Production for ACCA. Its producers are Eva Higginbotham, Annie Day and Finley Macrae. It's edited by Helen Quigley.