You may find you get hit with ads for toenail fungal treatments more than you’d like, but it’s a minor annoyance in the short term.
Web browser Brave will also help keep trackers out of your online business.Īnd if you use iOS, the newer versions of the software force apps to ask for permission to track your activity, which you can easily reject. Ghostery, for example, offers an extension for your desktop browser and a dedicated web browser for your smartphone that blocks many of the most common trackers. There are plenty of tools to help you protect your privacy, from ad-tracking blockers to built-in controls on operating systems that prevent apps from tracking your movements online. Tech companies are pulling our strings, using our personal data as a way to target content and build fairly significant profiles of us to sell us more products and services. It will then praise you for your good habits, giving you that nice boost of endorphins that keeps us hooked on our phones to start with. You open the app, place your phone screen down and the app will play white noise such as campfire, a stream, rainfall or night sounds to help you focus until the time is up.
The Bear Focus Timer, for example, uses the Pomodoro Technique, which breaks the work into intervals, with a short break in between. There are also apps to help you focus on tasks for short periods of time without interruption. You can also set it to turn on automatically, for example at a certain time of day when you know you need to work uninterrupted. On Android, the digital wellbeing settings allow you to customise focus modes to cut out notifications from distracting apps. You can add focus modes for fitness, reading, mindfulness, driving or gaming, or even add one of your own. Apple’s newest version of iOS includes the option to set several “focus” modes that will cut down on the distractions but allow important or relevant notifications through.įor example, Do Not Disturb mode will silence all notifications and apps, but a customisable Work focus mode will allow notifications from important people and apps, and lets people know you have notifications silenced. It seems strange, but tech can also help us beat it.
If technology has become more of a hindrance than a help, it might be time to walk things back a little and get your technology use in check. When you are working, how often are you distracted by the numerous emails and messages that land in your inbox? Is checking your phone a reflex action when you are bored or – like most of us – just procrastinating? How many people are so busy with their smartphones that they aren’t noticing what is going on around them? Take a look around you next time you are out in public. But it’s hard to argue that technology isn’t making us increasingly distracted. So it’s not inevitable that the internet will affect our brainpower. Greek philosopher Socrates thought that writing was inferior to memory and the spoken word the printing press was another invention that was going to be key to the downfall of civilised society, and don’t even get us started on TV. New developments are always blamed for any potential ills in society, stretching back to ancient times. That may not strictly be the fault of the internet. How many people are so busy with their smartphones that they aren’t noticing what is going on around them? Photograph: iStock New developments are always blamed for any potential ills in society, stretching back to ancient times – and tech is no exception. We have access to unlimited information at our fingertips, and yet our attention span and capacity to retain information has been falling. The idea that the internet is negatively affecting our brains has been knocking around for a while. What is working and what is hindering you? What new habits could help make your life easier? We’ve compiled a few suggestions for your new year resolutions. As the old year closes and the new one begins, it is a good time to take stock of your tech habits.