Good day everyone!

Yesterday’s “Smartphone detox” made me consider my pseudo-addictions. At first I thought the whole phone detox thing doesn’t apply to me, because I really don’t spend that much time on it. Then I realised that there is another thing that I DO spend too much time on: TV.

Don’t misunderstand; I’m not going to go on a ‘lets detox all things tech’ spree, but ask yourself, what one thing are you spending a lot of time on that gives you very little, if anything, in return. “TV does give me a return, I get entertainment from it”, says the little voice in my head immediately, almost exasperated!

But in all honesty, it doesn’t. I literally flip through channels until I find something to watch. (As apposed to watching because I really want to see a specific programme) This means I’m simply “doing TV” instead of just staring out into space, to appease myself that I’m doing “something”.

Just imagine how much time am I wasting!! I could be learning a new language, reading a book – the possibilities are endless! “You can’t always be learning or doing some activity, you need down time,” protests the little voice in my head. That is true, we must have down time, even “dumb time” (time where you do nothing that is mentally stimulating) but spending up to four hours a night just finding the next mind numbing semi-interesting programme, while getting frustrated with having to see the same commercials over and over again, won’t do. Let’s face it; too much “dumb time” is not good!

My resolve:

1) List the programmes I really, truly want to see.

2) List alternatives to TV (or whatever thing you need to detox from).

3) Choose a programme and one or two alternatives each night.

Don’t forget to be proud of you for identifying and making this change!!