From eating out to attending your next meeting or perhaps searching for your next travel destination - the list of activities we indulge in daily uses tech to a serious degree. But what if we told you that as the year 2024 moves on, Americans are actually paying heed to live beyond digital means and that’s just so they can detox from it all and just pay heed to old-school or simpler things in life.
Yes, the era of digital detox is no longer a phenomenon and many American states are joining the bandwagon. But why is there a need or should we say, what are the reasons why they wish to make this change to begin with?
As per findings from SecureDataRecovery, the leading American states to lead the way include Maine, Idaho, and Tennessee. This is where citizens have opted to take a break because they’ve just had enough.
Other key findings seen in the research that was recently published spoke about tech exposing people more to negativity than anything else. And whether they like it or not, it’s sad to see the negativity that comes with it.
More than 64% of all US adults (age 18 to 76 years) make use of tech for the sake of entertainment. And within just a five minute time period since waking up, 61% of the majority reporting using tech and to be more specific, every one in three American was using it within a minute or so of waking up. And if that was not daunting enough, tech is said to be more harmful to human connectivity as per 41% of the majority enrolled in this study of Americans.
We aren’t shunning the massive benefits that the tech revolution has brought into our daily lives. Let’s face it, our lives have become so much more simpler thanks to tech. From cooking and cleaning to driving and exercise, we use it everywhere.
The chances of an average American not engaging with tech daily is non-existent.
The benefits are massive but did you ever think about it being a double-edged sword? Close to 70% of all Americans are speaking about how it’s exposing them to greater negativity in this world.
Thanks to the survey, the states where Americans have opted for a pause from digital connectivity are now in perspective. The states of Maine, Idaho, and Tennessee are home to stellar landscapes where you don’t need technology to witness it all.
You simply need to unplug from the world and just sit there to take it all in. And what else we saw was interesting from this study is how even those states where tech is said to be a leading driving force for the economy, like New York. Massachusetts, and Washington as well as Texas actually made the list too.
So from these stats, it’s quite evident that people are looking for change.
Now we bet you’re wondering which domains are the ones where Americans have opted to take a break from tech, right? We agree it’s really a major commitment to bid farewell to tech temporarily.
When technology happens to be the first and final thing you interact with in your day, the thought of not accessing it can be hard to imagine. But getting rid of phone time is never easy. It does require a lot of dedication but as this study proves, Americans do not mind. They’re up for the challenge.
Since it’s mostly used for domains like entertainment, people are shifting to other means than usual screen time. Be it social media, online purchasing, or games - Americans entering the digital detox phase are opting for activity that fall out of the digital era.
People are saying bye to podcasts and audiobooks. It just goes to show that so many in such states hope to get more aligned with chats surrounding this. And we did find that one motivating factor in Americans going tech free was the growing rise in data theft and privacy breaches.
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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World
