You May Be Online, But Are You Digitally Fit?

“We all have a relationship with technology. The question is this: How healthy is that relationship going to be? It’s an important question, because it affects how healthy and how wise we ourselves will be.” --Arianna Huffington

Digital fitness is a term that throws up imagery of an extremely savvy generation of happy ‘diginatives’. But if you look closer, digital fitness means a lot of different things to different people. For simplicity's sake, let’s classify digital fitness into four zones: personal, professional, social and pro-health.

Personal digital fitness:

This genre applies to the basic users, the ones who go online to look up information, seek entertainment, for shopping, or to be a part of a virtual hangout. The stay-at-home members of the family fit in this space; that is, the homemakers, senior citizens, and pre-teens. Fitness in this context means knowing how to use Facebook and WhatsApp, perhaps Instagram and Twitter too. If someone does not know how to do it, or is resistant to signing up, posting, commenting, sharing, uploading photos and videos, they are digitally unfit.

The Fix:

• Use digital media to learn or upgrade professional, social, or life skills.

• Use digital media to offer help or even a service, tapping into your area of expertise, to those who need it. Are you a good baker? Offer a tip online. Or maybe you are good at math, and can offer to teach someone seeking help. You will feel good, and put your browsing time to good use.

• Leverage digital media to start and promote your own venture, or home business.

Professional digital fitness:

This is the digitally savvy tribe that has the latest gadgets, games, apps, software on their fingertips. Quick to learn, use, discard, and upgrade, this group is obsessed with the latest in the digital space. They also consume a lot of content online, about their work, news, current affairs, sports, and such. They are most likely to have multiple online accounts and spend more time looking at their screens that they do offline, with their friends and family. Though this tribe appears to be digitally fit, they often suffer from some physical, or mental ailments.  

The Fix:

• Cut down on screen-time. Dump the Kindle. Ditch the Xbox. Go real. Read a real book, play real games, or simply walk, jog or run. Whatever gets you out into the fresh air works.

• Meet friends offline, instead of chatting long hours online.

• Seek a balance between your real and virtual life. Practice this consciously.

• Get all gadgets out of the bedroom, and focus on getting a good sleep.

In her book Thrive, Arianna Huffington, quotes Stephanie Donaldson Pressman, clinical director of the New England Center for Pediatric Psychology on the addiction to devices: “Clinically, we are seeing an increase in symptoms typically associated with anxiety and depression.” These, according to Pressman, include “short term memory problems, decreased attention span, sleep deprivation, excessive moodiness and general dissatisfaction”.

Social digital fitness

For such people, digital means being ‘social’. They commenced their digital journey with Orkut and moved on to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Hive, WhatsApp and will adapt to anything else that pops up tomorrow! They are always on the lookout for newer social media; following the happy rule of ‘the more the merrier’. This tribe, too, falls short of digital fitness and needs to raise the bar.

The Fix:

1. Go beyond social. Install an app that adds value to your life; try fitness-tracking apps, or even music apps.

2. Cut down the time you spend on social media. This will add hours to your day, and you will have time to do productive things that will give you a sense of purpose.

3. Do volunteer work. Dedicate some time every day, to volunteer time and work for a good cause.

Total digital fitness

The is the mark of the those amazing people who care about their life beyond digital media. They cut down on their screen time to accommodate real life good practices, and invest in physical, mental, emotional and ‘social’ fitness. To such people, digital fitness actually means digital wellness. It means creating and maintaining an optimum level of digital practices so as to live a balanced, healthy and happy life.

So, where do you find your digital level? If you seek to be digitally fit, all you need to know is the ‘eight-hour formula’: Eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work, and eight hours of play. Rinse, and repeat.

Eight hours of sleep:

Go offline when you hit the bed. Remove digital temptations from the bedroom. If you can’t switch your phone off, keep it on call mode only, for emergencies. However, one device that can be permitted in the bedroom is your sleep-tracking band if you wear one. Challenge yourself to get the best quality sleep. Try it!

Eight hours of work:

Even during meetings, and lunch breaks, we keep checking mails, connecting with clients and colleagues. This distracts us from focussing on the work we are committed to.

Be email efficient: Answer, delegate or delete as soon as your inbox lights up. If you keep it for later, it will never get done. At work, keep your gadgets on silent mode. Switch off alerts, reminders, notifications that can distract you. Just get the work at hand done.  

When working, log off from personal social media engagement, or just use it to take a short break. Then, go back to work. Most importantly, talk to your colleagues, for real--not just online. A real conversation inspires, adds energy and keeps you going.

Eight hours of play

It should be ‘real’ play; anything digital here should also feed your curiosity, imagination, or at least inspire and motivate you. So using an activity band or a virtual workout trainer, or a GoPro camera to record your adventures, or learning new skills online, will help you be digitally fit. All you need is motivation, discipline, and practice.

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