Again, not slagging tech because any tech is AWESOME, we humans are just not so awesome, YET, at using it as a tool that we pick up and put down and walk away from.
This post is Part #3 in a three part series about mental health and your smart phone. Check out Post #1 and Post #2 to learn why reevaluating how you infuse technology into your life is important to your mental wellbeing.
In my last post I had 6 tips for helping you get you started on spending less time with your phone. I figured that you may just be a little tired of listening to a ‘digital immigrant” so I went searching high and low, through many remote places, to find just the right expert to interview, a real life digital native…just kidding, I just had to look next to me on my sofa 😉
I interviewed a real millennial, a extraordinary digital native, a human who has never seen a world without WiFi and computers/tablets (I know…super weird). Jack Snell is a 17 year old high school student who really loves watching videos on a tiny screen in the same room there is a 72″ television.
Please take a moment to check out his advice on healthy engagement with two very popular social media platforms, Insta and Snap…See! This digital immigrant can still sound cool 😉
Now on to a much more interesting Digital Native…
By Jack Snell
Click for Full Article: Handling Social Media by Jack Snell *More Info Here
Pros:
Cons:
How to deal:
Pros:
Cons:
How to deal:
Social media is an amazing tool to connect and express yourself with people. That being said, it can also be extremely controlling. For positive mental health AND physical health, it is essential that we all make an effort to use social media in a more healthy way. Sometimes that might even mean not using it at all.
It was great to hear your perspective and that you actively use strategies to make your social media experience healthy, fun and overall beneficial.
When Jack is not writing about social media, he is actively posting and scrolling through Instagram pics of cars or writing about them on his blog. Check out his social media: Instagram or WordPress.
You know I couldn’t end without going a bit PsychNerdy on you 😉 So you now have heard from two people, one a digital native, and me, a digital immigrant, who both LOVE technology but are actively working on integrating it as a tool and not having it negatively affect our life. There is yet another area that social media can adversely affect your life and take some of the fun out of it. Now social media is interfering with your food intake and enjoyment!
There was a study done at Bringham Young University, “Satiation from sensory simulation: Evaluating foods decreases enjoyment of similar foods“, which found that looking at many too many pictures of food may actually make the act of eating less enjoyable.
Yes, it is called Sensory Bordom! Now that Instagram is even messing with your food along with your mental wellbeing, your social savvy and your self-esteem, you have a choice. Less time spent on this little device, which is hard, or continue and have your overall wellbeing nose-dive.
Please know…
#YouGotThis #LiveFully #MentalWellness
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
This post is Part #2 in a three part series about mental health and your smart phone. Check out Post #1 to learn why reevaluating how you infuse technology into your life is important to your mental wellbeing.
I am well aware that this is a difficult relationship to re-imagine, but this is possibly what is standing between you and living your best life. Again, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE, my tech toys, especially my smartphone. However, I am very aware of what it does to my self-concept, my time management abilities and my overall ability to focus on tasks. Ready to love that little tech wonder in a different way?
Marshmallow Test
Before I get too far down this rabbit hole, I just have to share one of my favourite psychology experiments, The Marshmallow Test!
In the 1960s, a Stanford professor, Dr. Walter Mischel, began conducting a series of important longitudinal psychological studies on the importance of delayed gratification (being less impulsive). I will let the videos below explain the fascinating and hilarious details of this study. My hope is that it will give you a little insight into the importance of learning to be less impulsive with your phone. If you get nothing out of it, at least you will see young kids struggling to not eat the marshmallow and the side-splitting strategies they try in the attempt to avoid actually eating it. I still LOL when I watch these vids 🙂
Delayed Gratification, Impulse Control, Digital Dieting, Tech-Life Balance, Mindful Use of Tech, whatever you want to call it you have a choice. A healthy brain or a brain that struggles. A successful life for your future self can start with living more in the real world and less in the digital world.
The Marshmallow Study makes one thing clear: if you want to succeed at something, at some point you will need to find the ability to be disciplined and take action instead of becoming distracted and doing what’s easy.
Ok, so I hear that you may be tipping in the right direction but have no idea how to actually stop eating the marshmallows (aka looking at your phone).
Here is a recap..
Eating 1 Marshmallow (Looking at Your Phone) = Building Psychological Distress
Waiting for 2 Marshmallows (Phone -Life Balance) = Building Mental Wellbeing
So, let’s talk about the very cute but large elephant in the room. FOMO!
In my opinion, this has got to be the worst side effect to this tech revolution. Studies show that FOMO leads to extreme dissatisfaction and has a detrimental effect on your physical and mental health – mood swings, loneliness, feelings of inferiority, reduced self-esteem, extreme social anxiety, and increased levels of negativity and depression.
Next blog post I will be going into more detail around how to manage specific challenges with applications such as SnapChat, Instagram and getting caught in the endless streaming cycle with YouTube and Netflix. Join me and please feel free to ask questions or suggest topic areas 🙂
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
heather.drummond@mohawkcollege.ca
In 1997, the term “disruptive technology” emerged as a term to help people conceptualize the rapid growth and impact of technology in our lives. Super smart Harvard Business professor, Clayton M. Christensen, coined this term in his best selling book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma”. He presented the idea of separating new technology into two categories: sustaining and disruptive. Sustaining technology relies on incremental improvements to an already established technology. Making what already exists better. A disruptive technology shakes things up a little by introducing something completely new.
What I want to share with you today is disruptive technology for your “necktop” computer, your lovely brain. I want to start with considering the wiring of your brain and the positive and negative impacts that technology has had on our brain development.
This is definitely not a post slagging technology nor ripping on millenials. I LOVE technology, like seriously love technology! I just want to offer some suggestions around how to have a smart relationship with your phone so that it is mutually beneficial.
What Makes Me a Tech Use Expert?
Well, the reason I think this is an important topic is because I have had the benefit of being a bona fide member of GenX which provided me with a titrated tech experience. This slow drip of new technology created an environment perfect to learn how to love and own a smart phone without it owning me. So, I think I just may have some solid advice for you on your road to a healthy tech balance.
Ok, I hear you saying…
GenX?!?! Who? Well look up “slacker generation” and one of the first sites to appear on Google is GenX. Yes, millenials, we were once ripped on by society too 🙂 So you can trust me! Let’s start DISRUPTING!
I want to start with helping you gain a better understanding of what happens when you let technology run amok, unsupervised, rampant and with no babysitter. You need to take charge of this trusted tech BFF and not allow it to secretly control so many aspects of your life. I hear from many of my students that the mere existence of social media makes it “way harder” for them than past generations. Yes, it is true, any new technology poses problems until us incredible humans learn to adapt to it. I am not going to let you off the hook that easily because you are the boss, not the tech! Human are adaptable.
I think learning how to use tech in a healthy way will require some background in brain science to convince you that this difficult learning, and behavioural shift, is important if you want to make technology a friend in your life and not a bully.
Check out this video to gain a better understanding of what your
little innocent phone is doing to you.
With a Smart Twist 😉
I love psych science! It helps me understand this big ol’ world and learn ways that I can live very happily in it. I want to help you do the same.
I have already established my love for my tech toys and I definitely have no plans to live without them. My only option has been mindful tech integration in my life. Being strategic about how I consume and utilize these wonderful digital advances in a way that maintains the healthy brain that I have worked so hard to nurture.
I am going to sneak in a wee bit more psych-nerdy science to help you understand why disrupting your current smart phone relationship, and doing things differently, is actually an urgent matter.
There is a pretty incredible longitudinal study, The Monitoring the Future survey, which has asked students in grade 12 more than 1,000 questions every year since 1975 (and students in grade 8 and 10 since 1991).
This survey asks teens how happy they are and how much of their spare time is spent on various activities. Here are some highlights:
For the love of your beautiful neural network, PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE, live your life for a while and stand near a human.
#BrainLove #PositiveComputing #Digital Dieting
In the next two blog posts I want to help you develop tools that prepare you to manage your wellbeing. No, you don’t have to break up with your phone, but you do need to take charge, be the boss and stop being subtly bullied by your phone.
Here are some of the highlights of the next two posts:
Join me and start DISRUPTING this tech invasion and
truly make your smart phone your BFF 🙂
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
You want to make some changes, take on some new challenges and keep developing into your best self. Whatever your goals are, the most important thing to remember is that this is a messy process, a beautifully messy process.
Don’t expect smooth sailing, or perfection, or the easy way out, if you want to grow. Personal development and change is all about geting out of your comfort zone. If you want your life to be different you need to do things differently.
Doing things differently does not have to be painful! Sustainable change happens at a pace that is manageable for you. Focus on small shifts everyday that lead toward your goal. Accepting setbacks as learning, and not letting them derail you, is an important perspective to foster. It is all about the direction not perfection.
Not Sure How to Even Start Building New Habits?
Not Sure How to Get “Doing”?
and read this!
How to Cultivate the Habits that Matter to You
10 Ways to Be More Productive in 2018
One of the most important things that I have learned is that your goals need to be your own, not for someone else, if you want to achieve them. It is going to get tough at times and you need to be clear why you are working toward this goal. At times, you are going to want to quit, but if you can really see yourself achieving this goal and what it will do for you, it makes the hard times easier to work through 🙂
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
It is this time of year that really gets me thinking of what people do to get through tough times. It can be a difficult month for so many people. What I have noticed is that people seem to use the word “coping” like the f-word, like a bad word, like a descriptor of a mental state of messiness (f^@%ed). But that is not true at all. Coping rocks! Adversity is an opportunity to put your skills to the test, to grow, to increase your adaptability, to learn that you, indeed, can do it. Read on, learn some new stuff, try some new stuff and surprise yourself with your ability to deal, even when you thought you couldn’t.
What changed my life, and the lives of so many of the students that I have learned from in my counselling practice, is that when you accept adversity, or barriers, as learning opportunities in your life you flourish. You start to rock this life because you learn to bounce back with all those wonderful skills you build.
Yes, there is always a moment when life knocks you on your ass, and you just lay there and whine, complain and use every word in the profanity realm (yes, I do that too). Then you go, “okay, that happened”, get sick of your pity party and then start doing something about it.
Me
So let’s start looking at coping differently…
“In psychology, coping means to invest conscious effort, to solve personal and interpersonal problems, in order to try to master, minimize or tolerate stress and conflict” (Brougham, Zail, Mendoza, Celeste & Miller, 2009)
Take Away:
Coping is a good thing. Try to stop using that word to describe a bad mental state. Coping means you are rocking it. Coping happens at many levels. Sometimes it is small, sometimes it is big. It about doing something, not how big or small.
“Problems are not problems. Coping is the problem.”
Virginia Satir
Success and happiness depend on how well you can cope with the untidy, confusing, embarrassing, crappy or messy situations of the day. In the book, Peoplemaking, Virginia Satir, a legendary social worker, talked about problems not being the problem. Expecting life to not have problems is a big part of the problem.
Start with accepting that if you want things to be different, you have to do things differently. Also, accepting that we will always be out of our comfort zone when we are growing and becoming our best selves. So let’s take on these “problems” and build our ability to bounce back and take on this life you have.
Here are some ideas that I uses daily, and highly recommend:
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
heather.drummond@mohawkcollege.ca
References
What you are about to read is not a slag to millennials, but rather a compliment!
Dear Millenials,
I know that you take a bunch of criticism from Boomers and GenXers, some if of it deserved 😉 some misinformed and wrong. So to balance out this perception, I am going to share a good news story with you…
I have just come back to work after a province wide (24 colleges) faculty strike where I had the privilege of waking in circles, for little to no pay, taking a strong stand for quality education (which is super important). No, I didn’t want to be doing this but the cause was irresistible since education changed my life profoundly. Integrity means supporting your beliefs even when it is hard. I want you to have the incredible educational experience that I had so that you too can create your wildest dreams life.
So, we faculty were all very nervous coming back, wondering what we would be met with as the student-faculty paths started to intersect again. What I found was pretty incredible behaviour from you millennials 🙂
So many of you were stressed and overwhelmed, which is absolutely normal since you had no idea what the plan was for you to complete your semester. Within a week, after the plans were clear, the whole campus feeling transitioned from freaked out to functioning beautifully. Students listened, asked questions and started getting back to work and professors listened, asked questions and supported their students. So many of you decided that you would “lean in”, listen and figure out your next steps. You got all gritty and motivated and made the next step toward your success. Nicely done!
My advice to you is look around you at the students who are leaning into their studies, not complaining about what happened (staying stuck) but rather doing what it takes to get their semester completed successfully, one small step by one small step. There are some pretty great examples out there in your classes, sitting right beside you. I am so impressed with your behaviour and resilient abilities 🙂
Well, this got me thinking about resilience building and a model that really helps bring the process to life.
The first step in building your resilience is awareness.
*Overall, awareness is reading your personal signs and knowing that there may be something that needs to change.
This is the part where you say, “okay, that happened”.
This is where the “bouncing back” part of resilience begins.
This is where you start to make adjustments in your approach so that you can improve the situation. Asking yourself, How can I shift my attention and energy to something helpful?
Here are some tools to get you started:
Take action and do something.
Do it consciously and intelligently. Use your emotional awareness, even if your choice is not to act immediately. Consider the last time you were in a state of indecisiveness.
How did you feel the moment you made a decision and took action?
What positive changes happened as a result?
Adapted from: 4 Steps for Building Your Resilience
Here are some facts to convince you tough ones out there…
It has been a while!
I just can’t stop myself from dropping some nerd on you today 🙂
Here is some evidence that emphasizes the importance of cultivating the skill of acceptance. I highly recommend adding this to your self-development life “to-do” list, especially if you want your life to be less overwhelm and drama and more “I got this” and “I can’t believe how this has changed my life”.
Buddhist teachings on happiness have long held that accepting that which cannot be changed or controlled is key to reducing suffering.
So some pretty smart researchers, Broadbent, de Quadros-Wander & McGillivray (2013), found that “perceived control” is a very important learned ability that fosters life satisfaction, happiness and wellbeing.
Primary Control (External): the ability to make desired changes in your environment. Yes, you need to assesses the situation and see if there is anything you can do to make it better….and then do it.
Secondary Control (Internal): making changes within yourself to adapt to your environment; the acceptance of what can’t be controlled externally. You change your thinking about it, or work hard at stop thinking about it (stop dwelling on it), and start regrouping and designing your next steps.
*Both types of control are EQUALLY important in determining overall life satisfaction. Secondary Control, internal control, helped the research participants to cope with the losses in primary control that they had experienced.
I will end with the words of advice from a very wise woman….
Jennifer (Reid-Bicknell) Trapman
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
heather.drummond@mohawkcollege.ca
References
Broadbent J, de Quadros-Wander S, & McGillivray J (2013). Perceived Control’s Influence on Well-being in Residential Care vs. Community Dwelling Older Adults. Journal of Happiness Studies; DOI 10.1007/s10902-013-9452-9
Here in Canada, we are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend. I thought that this would be a great opportunity to get all nerdy on you and present some pretty great reasons to start infusing gratitude in your life.
The land that Canada is on was originally occupied, and cared for beautifully, by indigenous people. Since this land was taken over without negotiation, we Canadians could at least be grateful for the life that this land has given us. There is nothing worse that first world problem whining in a land of such prosperity. Ok, said my piece on why gratitude should be a given, but since it still seems to be a difficult task to master, let me tell you what a attitude of gratitude can do for your nocturnal angst.
Often the reason why people have difficulty getting to sleep, and sometimes remaining asleep, is what you think before you go to bed. Scared, fearful, anxious, freakout out thoughts keep you in a state of “fight or flight” in your brain. Seriously! Your brain kinda needs you to be alert if you are gonna use your fists or your legs to run away. So, my suggestion is to do the following:
There are some pretty smart, researchers at the University of Manchester in England who looked at how gratitude might affect people’s snooze time. Their study included over 400 adults of all ages, even some with diagnosed sleep disorders. They asked these folks to complete questionnaires about gratitude, sleep and pre-sleep thoughts, and these people provided some pretty cool information that resulted in the data being smooshed into patterns and trends that showed that gratitude was related to having more positive thoughts, and fewer negative ones, at bedtime. What this means is that gratitude leads to dozing off faster and sleeping longer and better.
*With nerdspeak translations
Gratitude was uniquely related to:
Here is an awesome resource, with a free APP :), to get you started on the magical infusion of gratitude in your life.
You can even get weekly free tips sent right to your email. Seriously, stop whining and start noticing what is going well in your life and you will start to sleep better (an then be less whiny). Even I get whiny at times, but I really try hard to balance my negative thinking with expanding my life view by forcing myself to also see what is going well. Trust me, it works 🙂
Surround your gratitude with healthy sleep habits.
I wish you all a weekend of getting some gratitude swirling around your brain . This is the first step to better snoozing’ 🙂
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
heather.drummond@mohawkcollege.ca
References
Wood A.M., Joseph, S., Lloyd, J., Atkins, S. (2009). Gratitude influences sleep through the mechanism of pre-sleep cognitions. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 66 43–48