My phone was controlling me, so I went on a digital diet
我的“数字节食”经历
I was having a much-coveted weekday lie-in when my four-year-old bounded in to inform me it was time to get dressed. Shocked to find I had wasted nearly two hours scrolling mindlessly through my phone instead of resting, I got out of bed feeling more mentally exhausted than on mornings when I get up at the crack of dawn.
工作日的早上，我正躺在床上，享受自己渴望已久的赖床时光，突然我四岁的孩子蹦蹦跳跳地进来，告诉我该起床穿衣了。我这才震惊地发现，我已经浪费了近两个小时漫无目的地刷手机，却没好好休息。下床后，我觉得自己比平时黎明时分起床还要精神疲惫。
My husband has been complaining about my screen addiction for months. I brushed it off. But somehow those two precious lost hours jolted me into recognition: my phone was controlling me.
数月来，我的丈夫一直在抱怨我对手机上瘾，我都不予理睬。但不知何故，这宝贵的两个小时让我幡然醒悟：我的手机在控制我。
Pondering what sort of digital diet to put myself on, I came across Mind Over Tech, founded by former sculptor and web developer Jonathan Garner. About five years ago, Garner was having a personal crisis. He noticed, as I had, that part of his mental disquiet came from having limited control over his attention when he used
his phone. “I was setting out to do one task but being sidetracked into something totally different. I was scrolling through Twitter before I even knew my phone was unlocked.”
在思考该试试哪一种“数字节食”时，我偶然发现了Mind Over Tech，这家公司的创立者乔纳森•加纳(Jonathan Garner)曾是雕塑家和网络开发人员。大约五年前，加纳经历了个人危机。和我一样，他也意识到，他的精神焦虑源于使用手机时对自身注意力的控制有限。“我原本要着手完成一项任务，但却被带偏了，开始做完全不一样的事情。我甚至连什么时候解锁的手机都没注意，就开始刷Twitter了。”
The product that grew out of Garner’s wake-up call is a physical deck of 50 cards, each bearing bite-sized experiments to help users approach technology more mindfully. Over a 24-hour period I tried a few out, including: “Avoid early morning tech use”, which asked me to try to delay the first moment when I engage with my phone each morning, and “Post-It note on your phone screen”, to help me notice when and why I pick it up. Later I added “Charge your phone away from your bed”. The goal, says Garner, is not to force yourself to change, but to try to build a new healthy habit, like daily yoga or less caffeine.
加纳警醒了以后，推出一副由50张卡片组成的实体牌，每一张上都写有一些可以尝试进行的、简单易行的做法，帮助使用者更加清醒、谨慎地使用科技。我花了一天时间尝试了其中几个方法，包括:“避免清晨使用科技”，要求我尽量推迟每天早晨第一次接触手机的时间；以及“往手机屏幕上贴便利贴”，这可以让我注意我是在何时以及为何拿起手机。后来我还尝试了“不在床边给手机充电”。加纳表示，这些做法的目的并不是强迫自己改变，而是努力养成一个新的健康习惯，比如每日瑜伽练习或减少咖啡因摄入。
I decided I would only keep doing something if it stuck naturally, and kept an analogue diary of my progress. The first two cards — plus “Avoid your inbox until afternoon” — worked well for me. Over two weeks, I practised them each day and found myself feeling more positive about my relationship with technology, more able to exercise self-control when it came to my phone and, dare I say it, more productive overall. I think these are habits I will return to regularly, as I am sure I’ll keep relapsing into old ways.
我决定只坚持做我能自然而然确立下来的做法，并且用纸笔记录下我的每日进展。“不到下午不点开收件箱”以及上面提到的两张卡对我来说很有效。过去两周，我每天都照着这几张卡片上写的做，我发现我能够更加积极地面对自己与科技的关系，并且在使用手机时更能发挥自控力，而且我敢说，我的效率总体而言更高了。我觉得我需要经常重温这些习惯，因为我确信我会不断故态复萌。
Other prompts never quite stuck. The “Delay the urge to search” card was a spectacular fail, as I spent almost an entire day off searching hotel reviews for an upcoming trip to the US.
至于卡片给出的其他提示，我一直很难坚持下来。“推迟搜索冲动”卡简直太失败了，因为我花了将近一整天的时间在网上搜索酒店评论，为即将到来的美国之旅做准备。
Is there an explanation for what sticks and why? Garner says each individual is gathering data, reflecting and then making changes for themselves — a form of scientific experimentation. “But what really matters day to day for you is how you feel that extra hour in your morning is best spent. Is it helping you recharge?”
哪些可以确立下来成为习惯，又为什么能确立下来，对此有什么解释吗？加纳表示，每个人都在收集数据、反思、然后为自己做出改变，这是科学实验的一种形式。“然而，在你的日常生活中，对你而言真正重要的是完美度过早晨那额外一小时给你的感受。它能让你重新精神焕发吗？”
Mark Essex, a senior executive at KPMG, puts his digital habits in the same category as comfort eating — something he has struggled with for 25 years. For him, the experiments are like exercise or meditation, a regular practice rather than a one-time fix. He told me his 10-year-old daughter has also begun using the cards, leaving her phone downstairs before going to bed.
毕马威(KPMG)高级主管马克•埃塞克斯(Mark Essex)把自己的数字习惯和情绪性进食归为同一类事情——他已经与后者斗争了25年。对他而言，这些尝试就像锻炼或冥想，是一种日常实践，而非一劳永逸。他告诉我，他10岁的女儿也开始使用这些卡片，上楼睡觉前会把手机放在楼下。
For some, reappraising their relationship with technology has been more seismic. When former YouTube executive Georgie Powell found herself idly scrolling through pictures of her newborn daughter, while her baby lay right next to her, it led her to quit her job. “I was ignoring my daughter, not even looking her in the eye,” she told me. “Meanwhile, my core objective at YouTube was to get people to watch more YouTube and I started getting increasingly uncomfortable with that.”
对某些人而言，重新评估他们与科技的关系带来了更重大的改变。有一天，YouTube
前高管乔吉•鲍威尔(Georgie Powell)正在漫无目的地浏览她刚出生的女儿的照片，她突然意识到孩子就躺在她身边，她因此辞去了工作。她告诉我，“我忽视了我的女儿，甚至都没有仔细看看她。而且，我在YouTube的核心任务是让人们更多地观看YouTube，可这一点令我感到越来越不舒服。”
Powell went on to found Space, an app that analyses your screen time, before phonemakers such as Apple introduced this feature by default. She thinks the pandemic has exacerbated parents’ worries about technology in particular because it has broken boundaries they had previously upheld. “I’ve found families are struggling to reset. It’s hard to dial-back use,” Powell says. She no longer takes her devices upstairs at night and only responds to messages in batches.
鲍威尔随后创建了Space，这是一款分析屏幕使用时间的应用，苹果(Apple)等手机制造商也陆续在手机上内置了类似的功能。鲍威尔认为，疫情尤其加剧了家长们对科技的担忧，因为它打破了他们此前坚守的界限。她说道，“我发现很多家庭都在尽力恢复原状，减少（电子设备的）使用很困难。”晚上她再也不将自己的电子设备带到楼上的卧室，而且只批量回复信息。
My favourite part of this experience has been using pen and paper to plan and take notes. Every time I sit down with the deck and my notebook, my two-year-old comes over, attracted by the bright colours on the cards. Together, we spend 20 absorbed minutes sorting them by colour and dividing them into stacks, time when neither of us is distracted by a screen. That’s the habit I hope to keep.
这些实践中我最喜欢的部分就是用纸和笔来写计划和做笔记。每当我拿着这副卡牌和笔记本坐下来时，我两岁的孩子就会被卡片上鲜艳的色彩吸引过来。我们俩一起花了20分钟全神贯注地将卡片按照颜色分类，并把它们分成几摞，这段时间我们都没有因电子屏幕而分心。我希望能保持这一习惯。
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