The Social Hour

During my Digital Declutter (which is still on as I'm writing this), I've reintroduced the Social Hour to my life. The idea: Instead of picking up my phone dozens of times every single day to check my messages, I check them twice a day, half an hour at a time. This is a more deliberate approach to my digital social life. I've been living with my phone's notifications turned off for well over two years now. When I first did this, I wondered: if I allow none of the apps on my phone to send me notifications, how will I know when my friends and family try to get in touch? Don't I need to nurse my social contacts digitally every once in a while? That's when the idea of the Social Hour was born. I've considered for a while that I could turn off all of the notifications except for messaging apps, but I realised that this approach eliminates the idea of a notificationsless life entirely. If I made this exception, I'd continue to associate my phone with a dopamine kick. At any moment of my…

Commenting on Bubbles has been removed. Why? If you want to talk about this post, write to the author, use the comments on their blog if it has them, or reply with a "RE:" post on your own blog. Suggestions? feedback@bubbles.town