From "30 Minute Ick" to "Unique Distraction Units": Introducing a glossary for the age of information overload and media dysfunction
You can't solve what you can't describe
There are problems, and then there are wicked problems. Wicked problems feel impossible to solve because they are so big, so complex, so interwoven with fundamental aspects of our society, that they can’t even be easily defined.
How can you solve what you can’t even define?
Our modern experience with information and media exemplifies this.
Everywhere you turn you will see people talking about the same set of problems, over and over in slightly different ways. “The media is broken.” “My mind is fried.” Can you go a single week without hearing somebody lament how much time they wasted on their device or a particular app? Or the impacts of misinformation and hyper-polarization on friends, family members, or social discourse at large? It’s part and parcel of the cultural zeitgeist.
What’s just as defining of this moment in society, however, is how reliably these conversations fizzle out or end in exasperation. We’re good at talking up the outcomes, but struggle to dig into the root causes precisely and simply.
Taming any wicked problem comes down to making it easier to describe and therefore think through. The more conversations I’ve had around this subject space, the more I realized there is an entirely new lexicon emerging that can help.
We’ve identified over 170 terms so far, and will be digging into what I think are the most important ones. Some will make you laugh, and some — many, I hope — will be lightbulb moments, giving you succinct new ways of seeing and describing something you’ve been vaguely experiencing every day. Terms that are so clarifying they can change thoughts and therefore behaviour.
Let’s start with the first one:
30 Minute Ick
AKA The 30 Minute Ick Factor
How many times have you opened your phone with the intention of only checking up on something quickly, with a very precise, simple action in mind — only to realize, when it’s much too late, you somehow got sucked into a time vortex. A half hour has passed (at least!), and you usually snap out of it as you’re deep down a rabbit hole, reading or watching something completely unimportant at best, downright stupid at worst. In an instant you feel the pang of regret and annoyance: a slice of your precious, finite life just got zapped for no good reason. Like you’ve been hoodwinked — and you’re probably now also behind schedule on something else that actually matters. That feeling of disgust, of subtle disappointment in yourself, as you snap out of it? That’s the 30 Minute Ick.
Background reading:
Why Social Media Makes People Unhappy—And Simple Ways to Fix It
“I Don’t Even Remember What I Read”: How Design Influences Dissociation on Social Media
What you can do about it:
Download a screen time/ app blocking app.
Popular ones include AppBlock, Freedom, Opal, and Unpluq or Brick. In terms of (intentional, good) friction, the last two probably have the most, and are therefore arguably the most effective: they include an NFC-enabled physical keychain-type fob, so gaining access to the blocked apps (based on a schedule you set) requires you to go retrieve the fob and put it near your phone.
Why: 30 Minute Ick is the ickiest when it happens in the middle of something you were supposed to be doing. That’s when the stakes are highest. If it happens when you were relaxing or had intended to be doing nothing anyways, it obviously hurts less. (Though not all down time is equal, a subject for another post!) So: to avoid the worst Ick, the best thing you can do is block the addictive, time vortex-producing apps to begin with during periods you know you should be productive and focused. I currently can only access my social media apps between 6-9pm.
Don’t keep your phone around you or in sight, during the day or at night, except when you absolutely need to.
Avoid, at all costs, keeping your phone in your bedroom. Using it before you go to bed, or first thing in the morning, is one of the worst habits you can possibly have in terms of tangible affects on your life. At night, it damages your sleep efficiency (screen light and stimulation when you’re supposed to be winding down), and almost always reduces the amount of time you sleep by frequently resulting in 30 Minute Icks — so many, that you gradually become desensitized to them, a second order toxic impact. You stop caring about wasting your life away, about having meaningless digital interfaces compromise your plans.
In the morning, it’s nearly as bad: instead of easing into your day with clarity and calm, you’re allowing others to plant the emotions and ideas and stressors — almost always unhelpful ones — that will dictate how you start your day. Do you really want to hand over your day to some faceless advertisers and platforms trying to maximize your engagement at any cost? Do you want to be behind schedule, thanks to the 30 Minute Ick before your day has even started?
A common response I hear (and I was guilty of myself initially): “but I need my phone to wake up, it’s my alarm!” Guess what? Analog alarm clocks have existed long before phones arrived on the scene, and there are plenty of fancy digital alarm clocks too that let you connect music, help you wake up with sunrise simulation lights, and tons of fun ones, too!
Another is that you need your phone to track your sleep: then get a dedicated sleep tracking wearable or mattress pad. The price is still a steal versus the cost of damaging your actual resting hours and the way you start your day, every single night and day.
During the day, don’t keep it in sight, nor within reach. For most people, the temptation is too great to aimlessly “just check”. As mentioned above, this is when you’re most likely to have the most painful or compromising Icks. If you have a higher number of “pick ups” in your screen time stats, use a pomodoro timer to get into the habit of uninterrupted, phone-free sprints to build up your resistance.
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We won’t find solutions if we don’t even have the language to discuss them. If we can better identify and describe the problems around us, it will go a long way to having more productive conversations, and expanding the space we make for them.
This glossary series is an effort to do so.
Up next: (The) Abilene Paradox