In a previous post, I described my experience with the diffusion of mobile phones and the internet and my past struggles with having a healthy relationship with these technologies. I believed that the way I was using my smartphone and laptop was damaging my productivity, social skills, and well-being. To try to solve it, I conducted a 1-month self-experiment in which I replaced my smartphone with a dumbphone, didn’t use the internet at home but kept using it at work, and blocked distracting websites when working with the laptop at the office. This self-experiment was life-changing and the reason I am still very cautious with the use of digital technologies.

In this new post, I will report this self-experiment and briefly describe posterior experiences in which I used the internet even less.

1-month Self-experiment

The self-experiment took place in July 2019 when I was conducting research at the university for my PhD thesis and living in Penryn, a small town of around 7000 inhabitants in Cornwall, UK. During this month, I put my smartphone in a locker at work and replaced it with an old mobile phone without an internet connection. I also stopped using the internet at home and blocked distracting websites, such as social media and online news with Freedom, while working with the laptop at the office. To communicate with important contacts, I used email at work, SMS, phone call, and Skype (which I used in a meeting room at university).

I expected that this change was going to lead to an improvement in my productivity at work and outside work, sociality, and wellbeing. To see whether I was right or not, I used a notebook to track my productivity, sociality, and happiness during the month. I was very exhaustive at the beginning, meaning I took notes about what I did every day. Later, I reduced the frequency to approximately once a week.

Productivity

Why did I expect my productivity was going to improve?

For the purposes of the self-experiment, the term ‘productivity’ refers to my subjective perception of using well my time both at work and in my personal life. My expectation of improved productivity was the logical consequence of my previous experiences. When I didn’t have the internet at home or on my phone, I used the internet in a minimalist and highly functional way: I went to the library for one or two hours per week to collect the information I needed for my offline life. In contrast, when I had internet at home and on my phone, my use of the internet became much less efficient: I got easily distracted and wasted considerably my precious time.

Did my productivity really improve?

When evaluating whether my productivity had increased or not at the end of the self-experiment, my overall conclusion was positive. The improvement in my productivity was SPECTACULAR in the first week. For example, on the second day I

• Got up at 5 am
• Walked to the office and arrived at 6.20 am
• Worked very focused. I was at the office only 6 hours and did lots of progress in my research
• Went to the gym
• Went for a coastal walk
• Played the guitar
• Cooked dinner and lunch for the following day
• Went to dance salsa in the evening

The other days of the week were similarly productive both at work and outside work. Outside work, my time was occupied by activities like swimming in the sea, reading on the beach, hiking (23 miles on Saturday), going to the gym, participating in a music improvisation workshop, brainstorming business ideas, and domestic chores. Although I did some of these activities before the experiment, I had never been able to do a so effective use of my time: I was at the office for fewer hours but worked better, while my life was filled with lots of interesting activities. I think this was the first time I experienced myself the virtuous cycle of focused work.

The Virtuous Cycle of Focused Work.

I have developed this idea in a previous post ‘Overworking: How to Fix It to Be Productive Long-term’  

n the following weeks, I was also more productive than before the experiment, but this was less spectacular. Unfortunately, I had very unproductive days towards the end of the self-experiment. I wrote in my notebook: “when I went to the office late and I was tired my productivity wasn’t great and I wasted my time at the office. At the same time, I stopped going to the gym as often, and missed walks because I felt I needed to work more, which has been the worst”. I had this “need to work more” because I had too many things on my plate. I was not only doing the research for my PhD, but also writing part of a book chapter, and other “opportunities” (e.g., job openings) prompted me to work “more”. I started overworking, became tired, and was not able to focus during these extra hours. Consequently, I wasted some of my time.

I even checked the news 3 days before the end of the self-experiment, which was something forbidden during the experiment. It was a Sunday, and I was at the office, extremely tired, and lacking motivation. I hadn’t blocked the news on Sunday because I didn’t expect to be at the office on weekends! So, an easy and distracting activity (i.e., checking the news) was more appealing than a deep activity (i.e., writing a book chapter). This is a pattern I have observed many times. If I am tired, lack motivation, or somehow feel bad, the digital toys took control of my attention. This is a great example of the vicious cycle of overworking.

My worst nightmare: becoming Dr Desk Potato

In conclusion, yes, not having a smartphone or the internet at home seems to have increased my productivity but this statement should be qualified. Other variables were also at play such as the activities I did during my free time and the amount of work I committed to do.

Sociality

Why did I expect my sociality was going to improve?

I thought that not having an online alternative to face-to-face socialising or websites to visit when I was bored was going to make me more prone to interact with people nearby. Consequently, I expected I was going to start more conversations with people I didn’t know, propose more social activities to do with others, and participate in more social activities organised by others.

Did my sociality really improve?

I reached the conclusion that my sociality did improve in the sense that I did “more social things than before”. However, I considered at the time that the improvement wasn’t impressive.

As for productivity, the clearest improvement occurred in the first week of the experiment when I started many conversations with people I didn’t know at different places: at work, on my walks, and in cafés. This wasn’t very common at the time. I also participated in more social activities and proposed social activities to do with my new acquaintances. Curiously, one of them ended up becoming one of my best friends in the UK and we started to play table tennis, go for walks, coffees, etc. during the experiment.

Kids playing table tennis. One of the social activities I rediscovered during the self-experiment

Smartphone zombies

Did my wellbeing really improve?

When evaluating this I reached a strong positive conclusion: “This is very clear! I’m happier without a smartphone [and without an internet connection at home] and I have more time. I don’t feel bad about wasting my time. Of course, having a goal and living in agreement with my own values is great”.

Note that my conclusion about how not having a smartphone or the internet at home increases my happiness is based on personal values. I don’t want to waste my time. Using smartphones and the internet on my laptop in unproductive ways makes me feel bad for wasting my time. Consequently, not having the possibility of wasting my time in this way, and doing other activities instead, made me feel happier.

I had a very vivid memory of that first week without my smartphone or internet at home. I remember the feeling of total relaxation and inner peace while walking to the office early in the morning. I really felt like the happiest knowledge worker on Earth. In my notebook, I speculated that “not being overloaded with [digital] information in both my work and spare time (…) made me less tired and more productive at the beginning [of the self-experiment]”, which likely affected my wellbeing positively.

Decisions after the experiment

After the self-experiment, I took several decisions. These included

• Sell my smartphone and continue with a mobile phone without internet
• Don’t install the internet into the house I was about to move into where I was going to live alone for four months while I was finishing my PhD Thesis
• Be OK with the use of some social media if their use is minimal and for specific purposes that I deeply value (e.g., finding out about dancing events). Nevertheless, I haven’t done this until more than 2 years later.

Because I took these decisions, I can evaluate whether the results of the self-experiment were sustainable, or they were limited to just one month.

A 4-month extension

One month after the 1-month experiment, I moved to a new house for four months. I didn’t install the internet in this house, and I continue using a mobile phone without internet instead of a smartphone. Furthermore, I stopped going daily to the office and worked almost exclusively from home. Consequently, I used the internet during this time even less than during the 1-month self-experiment.

These four months were immediately before the submission of my PhD thesis in early January 2020. By then, other PhD candidates frequently asked me how I could work on my research without the internet at home. Pretty easy. Most of the information I needed was already stored on my laptop. If there were still some information I needed from the internet, I just wrote it down in a notebook. Some days I went to the local library or a café for one hour and collected the information I needed. I also replied to emails during that time. This is the way I used the internet in the early days. A great advantage of this system is that I had a clear separation between deep work (e.g., writing and data analysis) and shallow work (e.g., replying to emails, and collecting information).

I was very productive during those four months. Of course, this wasn’t only because I didn’t have a smartphone or internet connection at home. I wanted to submit my thesis within 3 years of starting it, and those were the last four months for attaining my goal. However, I didn’t overwork during that time and I was extremely relaxed during that period. In fact, I was frequently asked how I could be so relaxed when I was about to submit my thesis.

My relaxed attitude was likely caused by two factors. First, I had already done most of the work for my thesis. Yes, there were important pieces of work still to be done, but I had already written most of the thesis. Second, I was confident that my work system would make me finish on time. Apart from my limited access to the internet, my work system also included a daily walk in the nice woodland behind my house. This often had the effect of boosting my creativity and replenishing my attention, which was very valuable to keep writing.

I also considered it to be the best period of the three years I worked on the thesis in terms of sociality and happiness. Apart from the disconnection from the internet, the improvement in my sociality could have also been driven by the fact that I knew more people at the end or because I didn’t have housemates and, therefore, I invited more people over. However, it is clear that an important part of my sociality at the time was with people I met during my internet disconnection months.

The improvement in my happiness was likely again caused by the congruency between my personal values and lifestyle. Another contributing factor could have been that I was anticipating the reward of finishing my thesis and the exciting plans I have for the day after.

A natural experiment

After submitting my thesis, I kept living without a smartphone, but, due to multiple reasons, I started living in houses with internet access. However, a natural experiment on living without internet access at all for two weeks took place in April 2020. The internet stopped working at home and because it coincided with the first lockdown in the UK, I couldn’t access the internet at all.

For me, this was fantastic. I have never been more productive in my life that in those two weeks!! I had massive to-do lists and was able to do it all! My to-do list included: a morning routine with exercise at home, writing 6-7 hours a day, going for a walk at noon, collecting data for a self-experiment on diets, practicing my English pronunciation by recording and listening to myself, studying salsa footwork, journaling, reading, and other many small things.

Of course, I was so productive because I took the lockdown and the lack of internet access as an opportunity for self-improvement. However, the lack of internet access made it less likely I deviated from my path as there were fewer temptations to go for easy entertainment.

Obviously, my sociality did not improve during those two weeks without internet during the lockdown, but I was quite happy.

What can we learn from these experiences?

I think the most important thing we can learn from these experiences isn’t the conclusions regarding the effects of the internet on my productivity, sociality, and wellbeing, but the methods I used to reach those conclusions. Many times, we feel that something is wrong and/or that we could do better. We have intuitions about what is failing but, somehow, we procrastinate action. Consequently, the problems continue with us.

Doing a small experiment in which we add, remove, or replace something from our life for a predefined period is a great way to understand some of our problems and find solutions to them. Through careful observation of the effects of the change, we sometime find out that the solution is quite simple. Other times we will discover that the problem is more complex than our intuitions. The information we gather with this type of experiments is invaluable when we attempt to help ourselves to be placed on the right track to solve or improve at something.

Many people feel that digital technologies are damaging something in their lives. They might find that they don’t pay enough attention to their children for the continues notifications coming from technology; or they can feel inadequate while passively browsing the news feed of their friends in some social media; or they missed the time when they have more time to do cool offline activities. If this is your case, doing a self-experiment like what I did could help you to find your own solutions.

I am currently offering free one-on-one coaching sessions. Among other things, I am providing personalized help on how to design self-experiments and deal with problems related to digital technologies. If this is of your interest, don’t hesitate to contact me: contact@adventureofsuccess.com

Dr Ángel V Jiménez