Digital Dayz

Is your digital Life Costing You Mental Clarity? Here are 5 easy steps to reclaim it. Most of us are on our phones way to much. But it's not like knowing that even helps. What if there were practical ways to regain our mental clarity? Turns out there is! 1. Go on a walk. This gets you out in the sunshine, and gets blood flow to your head, clearing out the toxins and putting your mind in a good place for the day. 2. Upon waking, wait thirty minutes before checking your phone. Studies show that mental health is not helped by checking our phones in bed. Maybe go get that walk in, and let your phone at home. 3. Practice Daily Journaling. If you are unable to focus, try journaling it out to empty your brain. 4. Read instead of scroll Keep a book handy, instead of scrolling, ditch the phone and read a chapter, page or paragraph. This strengthens your mind, and gives your eyes a break from flashing pixels 5. Put your phone away for the evening. Pick a time and put your phone away for the evening. This allows healthy family interaction, and helps you sleep better for better mental clarity the next day. What do you do for mental clarity? Comment below 👇 --- Hi, we are Jared & Stennett We help you regain mental focus and clarity from digital overload Click our page -> 🚶♂️ -> 🔔 -> ♻ To share how you find mental clarity, Comment Below 👇

How About We Reach Way Back? Memorial Day is a secular holiday with a worthy secular purpose - remembering what political freedom is all about. I sometimes dimly remember another kind of freedom - the freedom from any kind of digital connection. Remember that - a world where the phone was on the wall?   (I'm not saying it was all roses back then, of course. Life is life during any age and this time chapter has as many blessings as any, but I'm still glad I'm old enough to remember a world without smartphones. If for no other reason, it allows me the advantage of comparing two different eras of world history.) But back to freedom, do I ever give myself and my family a taste of what digital freedom is all about?  Am I Still Free? My forays back into life without digital connection mostly involve working outside for 2 hours in the evening while leaving my phone in the house or going on a half-hour walk without my phone. Don't laugh. Digital warriors aren't very tough. But, on second thought, I'm suspicious that I'm not that different from anyone else in this regard. Here's the funny part. Every time I leave my phone behind, I like it. It's good for me. I notice more things. My mind feels reinvigorated. I feel like I stepped out from under a bit of a cloud. Maybe It's Time for a Holiday In our lives, we depend on our phones, and people depend on us to carry them. But I know that I benefit from intentional, scheduled breaks from mine, and I intend to take more of them. I also know that my family wouldn't mind. And what better time to start than a holiday like ... Memorial Day. I suggest we spend at least a small sliver of this Memorial Day remembering what complete freedom from any digital connection felt like. We might find we want to make these breaks a habit. Conclusion Enough from me. As James Martin said in his recent blog Surviving Forty Days and Forty Nights, "How can anyone stop listening, if no one stops talking?"  But he followed it up with, "I can." And I can too - by leaving my phone behind.  I intend to try it on Monday and give my family and the real world some undivided attention!

On World Book Day, I wrote a Facebook post about the book "Deep Work," where author Cal Newport famously exposes the value of deep work for a shallow age. If I could inspire one person to read Deep Work, I would be amply repaid! I have to think of the many, many times that friends and family have enriched my life by recommending a great book to me. Maybe it's time I start repaying that debt in the form of more book reviews. Like starting today. Today (May 4) is National Teacher Day, and I had to think of another famous book, "The Seven Laws of the Learner." As a faculty, our school read through it this year, and I was blessed, blessed, blessed by its message! Like "Deep Work" its value lies in its exposition. "The Seven Laws of the Learner" exposes what it actually means to TEACH. Here are a few quotes I carry with me: pg.38 - "The essence of the Law of the Learner is these three words: 'Cause to learn.' The teacher should accept the responsibility of causing he student to learn." (I first read this 15 years ago when I was teaching and I have never forgotten it.) pg. 90 - " A powerful force - for good or ill - lies within our expectations." pg. 161 - "The essence of the Law of Application is found in these four words: "Apply for life change." The teacher should always teach for the purpose of life change." pg. 287 - "The Bible does not have a need to be preached or taught. Only people have needs." I could go on and on, but I hope this inspires you, because all of us are teachers in one way or another. If you have never read "The Seven Laws of the Learner" go out and buy a copy TODAY!

I posted this last week on World Book Day and wanted to share it here. This book is well worth reading! f you've never read Deep Work, I highly recommend it on World Book Day. I wish I had read it long ago. I'm not quite finished with it - full disclosure. Here's one of my favorite quotes in it so far: "Let your mind become a lens, thanks to the converging rays of attention; let your soul be all intent on whatever it is that is established in your mind as a dominant, wholly absorbing idea" - Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges It's how we perform Deep Work in a shallow world. It's something I want to do more of! Happy World Book Day! You can learn more about it here. https://lnkd.in/gQYzwRkk #worldbookday2024 #deepworkbook #deepwork

A Lack of Real World Markers Creates A Contradiction in the Soul Introducing Team Human We have so many great Resources on our new Resource page that I could hardly decide which one to talk about first. These books and podcasts have so much to offer! I can't wait to discuss all of of them with you. But let's start off the list with Team Human by Doug Rushkoff, written in 2019. First off, I'm going to say that I only recommend about half the book, basically the parts where Rushkoff discusses digital technology and its effects. The book is divided into 100 mini chapters not necessarily grouped by subject matter. This makes it a little difficult to say which half I recommend. He is not a Christian (although I think he is of Jewish background and has a knowledge of the Bible) and evolution is his worldview. He also takes many swipes at capitalism and has a strong sympathy for some left-wing causes that I can't endorse. Also the book cover sounds revolutionary and almost Marxist.(See below.) And although a number of his ideas have to be discounted, the book's entire tone is actually quite reasonable. Even with all of that said, Team Human is a superb book. Through it all, Rushkoff is pleading that the uniqueness of human beings not to be discounted or trampled on by these marvelous digital machines. He is actually pleading for the image of God to be protected even though he does not give the glory where it belongs. He says so many things about digital exposure and its effects on human beings that have you saying "Yes, yes, that's exactly how it is." We might not be able to put it into words, but he does it for us. Opening Team Human Here is one of my favorite quotes in the entire book: "Replacing real things with digital technology creates within the soul a contradiction that we simply are not able to deal with." (emphasis mine) Some background... Doug Rushkoff has undergone a shift in the last 30 years. He used to believe that technology would allow humans to become smarter and able to nimbly navigate a world of distractions and multi-tasking (He wrote a book in 1996 called Playing the Future: What We Can Learn From Digital Kids), but he has since changed his tune, writing in 2019 in Team Human: "The more we are interrupted, the more distracted we become,, and the less we avail ourselves of the real-world markers we use to ground ourselves. We become more easily manipulated and directed by the many technologies whose very purpose is to disorient us and control our behavior." There is so much here in this short paragraph that I'm not going to even try to unpack all of it. It basically sums up all the worst elements of digital influence on our generation. Check Out Team Human on Our Resources Page Today! https://lnkd.in/eSRzSBbv

Is your digital life affecting your mental health and relationships? Digital Dayz is spreading awareness on these topics and how it affects our mental health! Check them out!

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We've all heard the phrase, "If you can measure it, you can manage it." And it's true. Increase your ability to measure a problem and you automatically increase your ability to manage it. More Tools Than You Think We've been talking about keeping track of wasted time on our phones, but we've been passing over all the tools and features that are already at our fingertips on our devices. And the good news? There are a LOT of tools to measure and manage our digital usage - on our phones right now! Beyond just screen time measurement, there is also a host of other options: Parental controls Communication safety Specific app limits Bedtime/Downtime Eyestrain warnings Want to learn about how to better use these management tools? Take the tour with Josh Scott. Take a Tour of Your Phone Accountability Is Key Setting up Screen Time and sharing your screen time with an accountability partner can be a powerful help in reducing it. From the blog, here's how you do that in iOS: "Turning on Screen Time starts with tapping on App & Website Activity, then tapping Turn On App & Website Activity to activate it on the device. Users can also share these Screen Time settings with other devices that are signed in using the same Apple ID by scrolling down and turning on Share Across Devices." Get a Handle on Your Screen Time Today!

10 Negative Screen time effects and How to fight back Our phones are always with us. As a digital culture, it’s our camera, notebooks, maps, and our connection to the rest of the world. While our devices are super beneficial, They do have their downside. As Christians, we should be aware of the potential downside that excessive phone screen time has on our lives so that we can live healthy digital lives.

Losing your attention span? Is your digital lifestyle draining you? Stennett, shares on what and why this is happening on the blog. “The price of something is the amount of life you exchange for it.” Henry David Thoreau Blog in the comments