Paula Rosenberg: This is the best thing that ever happened to me Israel today

Life in WhatsApp

Last week my cell phone fell out of my fingers and its screen shattered on the parking lot floor.

I came back from a very long day of work that started at half past six in the morning, and I felt proud that I was able to arrive at Hod Hasharon at 7:00 PM to drop Arbali off at a dance class.

I knew I had two hours until the pick-up time, so I checked into the supermarket and picked up what was most missing for tomorrow's sandwiches.

Before that, I stopped for a few minutes at the post office to pick up a package, and I performed all these actions while making endless phone calls, call after call: the editor of the program calls to close something for tomorrow, the training director of an organization that was interested in the workshop, my mother who asked why I don't come back to her ... In line with the mail, I tried to use the time to answer in Sheila's class WhatsApp group regarding the parent-teacher day, and also to answer in my friends' group to maintain a little social life.

Yes, my social meetings mostly happen on WhatsApp, and I will expand on that later.

Stressful and relaxing at the same time

While I am answering some of the messages, new ones pop up.

One of the mothers wrote in Arbel's class group: "Okay, there is already a ladle and a strainer, C brings potatoes, who volunteers to bring a kilo of flour and who is responsible for bringing a cutting knife?"

I used to make sure to stay up to date on class activities.

I admit that in the last two years, maybe since the end of the Corona closures, maybe because the girls have grown up and are already teenage girls - I let go of the illusion that I would be able to follow everything.

This year it has reached such a state where I give up in advance on reading a large part of the messages in the group (sorry if any of the parents read the column).

Every few days I ask one of the mothers for updates.

Sometimes I shamelessly write in the general group of the class: "Can someone update what this is about? I can't follow."

It's not that I don't want to - I can't anymore.

I feel that if I try to read all the messages, emails, newsletters, private messages on Instagram and private messages on Facebook - I will have to devote all hours of the day to this, and even then I am not sure that I will have enough.

I imagine that at least some of you identify with what was said.

I think the problem is even more complex because an excess of messages on WhatsApp and email is very stressful, but if I open the email or WhatsApp and there is no new message, I might get even more stressed, because what, no one wants to talk to me?

Nobody wants to work with me?

No one is interested in me?

Maybe they forgot to update me?

The illusion of multitasking

Some of us manage a large part of our events and relationships on WhatsApp, and I admit that I am one of those people.

not denying

Not proud of it but not really ashamed either, this is my life, as they say.

The lifestyle I lead leaves me very little time for meetings with my close friends, both due to the geographical constraints and due to the busyness.

We chat and vent what's on our hearts in the WhatsApp groups, I'm also addicted to stickers that can express a whole world of emotions.

I know it's not the best, but this is what it is at the moment (if we were now corresponding in a WhatsApp group, I would add a sticker of an apologetic face saying "it is what it is", to illustrate the feeling).

Even those who will testify to themselves that they do not conduct themselves entirely through WhatsApp, will notice that this means of communication has pretty much taken over our lives in all areas: customer service, interpersonal communication, news updates, even shopping.

I think that WhatsApp not only created a different kind of social communication and maybe less successful (I haven't decided yet), but also strengthened the illusion of multitasking, as if I can do several things at the same time, when in fact I can't.

None of us can.

Research shows that our brain is not capable of doing two things at once.

That is, there is no such thing as multitasking, but "switch tasking" - switching between several tasks quickly - and this is not efficient at all.

I feel for myself and for the participants in the stress coping workshops that I give, that the need to be available and responsive has increased the intensity of anxiety and vigilance.

I can't really eat and watch a video at the same time, even if I tell myself that I can.

I also can't listen to what Leon is telling me and scroll through the WhatsApp group of the show's production at the same time, even though I can believe that it is.

I have to admit that in the (too few) moments when I concentrate on just one action, I experience more pleasure and I feel much more relaxed.

But reality demands so much output from us, that the only way to meet it is to accept.

A flashing beacon

Back to the parking lot of my apartment building.

I tried to carry bags from the supermarket from the car, with the other hand I carried a dog that has trouble walking and my backpack (which is always too heavy because I carry much more than I need).

With my right foot I slammed the door of the car and took a few steps towards the elevators, but then I heard the sound of breaking glass, I looked down and saw my cell phone, the newest model I had recently purchased, smashed on the parking lot floor.

I continued to grab the bags and the dog and the briefcase, and I stared for a few seconds at the expensive device lying on the gray concrete, the cracks that had formed crossed the screen across its width: the upper half of the screen was painted black and the lower half emitted an alternating blue-green light in a kind of flickering that reminded me of a lighthouse that transmits messages to ships approaching the port.

A second before my cell phone succumbed to gravity, I held it in my right hand, between my thumb and forefinger, and with the other fingers I tried to hold a bag from the supermarket containing a package of buckwheat crisps and five avocados.

And out of all of these - it was the mobile that fell.

Obviously, I would have preferred the rolls to be dropped (although gluten-free rolls cost almost as much as a smartphone), but then the beacon flashed and pointed the way to the inevitable conclusion: we don't really get to choose what gets dropped when we overload ourselves.

Maybe the breakdown is the fix

For three days I walked around with a replacement phone, no contacts and no WhatsApp history.

In the first hour it frustrated me because I didn't know who was calling or sending a message.

But as time passed, I was surprised to find that I was enjoying the situation, the uncertainty imposed on me.

It was unexpected to find that instead of the expected frustration I felt a kind of freedom and liberation.

As the days passed, I realized that I was dreading the moment when the phone would come back from the lab and reveal to me who the people were that I hadn't returned their messages.

When the phone came back from repair, it took me 24 hours to get it working again.

I delayed and took my time until I returned the SIM to the sophisticated device.

It's so uncharacteristic of me, I'm a performanceist at heart and I get stressed when I don't answer someone, even to commenters I don't know personally on Facebook, as you've probably noticed if you follow me on the networks.

For three days, while using the replacement phone, I answered some incoming calls without knowing who was calling.

It felt to me like before, when we would answer the landline phone, which did not recognize who the person was calling us.

I didn't expect to enjoy being less in control.

My conclusion is that at least part of the fear of the unknown in our lives is related to the load, the load of people, the load of tasks.

The lack of free time is stressful, so we try to reduce options for deviating from the track, we want everything to be known, visible and planned - until something shatters and forces us to live in liberating darkness.

balance the personas

The ability to not know was stolen from me, and I didn't even know it was important.

When we choose to report to the world at any given moment what is happening to us on social networks, we are also taking away an essential and valuable part - our intimate persona in favor of the external persona, the one that is expressed in a story or WhatsApp or a post.

Both can be authentic, and it's important to have a place for both, but you don't have to break the mobile like me to understand that if the external overshadows the intimate, we live in an imbalance that does not serve us.

what do you want from me

The rush and pressure that accompany life on WhatsApp also creates a demanding experience like no other.

Do you know this message: ???

- The same message that people dare to send you after two hours of no response?

Unsurprisingly, these messages usually come from strangers who do not have the slightest commitment to contact, but they hold a strange position that they are supposed to receive a response from others within the time period they have decided on themselves, and if they do not receive it, then according to the response times they They made it up - they are allowed to make claims.

I wonder what will happen if I try to answer all the messages that have been waiting for me for weeks and months and even years in email, in WhatsApp, in text messages, in inbox on Instagram, in Facebook chat, in the WhatsApp groups of the class, of the girl's class, in the group that was opened in honor of waiting for Hala from work, in the group of Updates from the building committee How many days off work will I need to get over all this?

Parents or secretaries?

By the way, for the parents among us, when did we become our children's secretaries?

Because of WhatsApp, we have become responsible for homework and the logistics required for any activity, even when the children are already in higher grades, and this situation must change.

I remember as a child I had a special notebook in which we would write the homework in each subject and specific things that should be brought to class activities, and that was it.

My parents never opened this notebook, which in this day and age has turned into six WhatsApp groups for each student.

Why don't we give our kids back the management of their tasks, like before?

The solution is that there is no solution

All kinds of experts offer solutions to this burden, sorry for being blunt, but in my eyes these solutions are annoying and impractical: for example, the suggestion to use messages only for logistical purposes (you delayed the train by a decade), the "winning tip" not to have friendly conversations or family joys on WhatsApp ( then I won't have friends), to answer every message as soon as it is received without delay and to get rid of it (and if I am on the air? Or sleeping? Or just talking to a family member and don't want to be disturbed? ), and there is the most outrageous advice: prioritize!

Or in its even more irritating version: "just" prioritize!

Sorry, but this advice is not relevant in today's reality, because in order to make order and decide what is better, I need to be able to know what all the tasks assigned to me are - and that is exactly the problem in the first place, dear mentor.

You may have heard of "Inbox Zero", a method that claims that you can leave your inbox empty almost all the time, and that it can also be applied to text messages.

I don't know anyone who has managed to implement it, I would love to hear about such people, and on that occasion we can entrust them with the keys to managing the entire world.

A confession that may shock you, but I don't want to live in hiding any longer: my mailbox currently has 29,531 unread messages, and that's only one in three.

A little more than "Zero".

Still, I don't give up and download with hopeful enthusiasm every app that promises to put my workload in order.

This week I downloaded a new app that is supposed to be the best, I hope I have time to run it and learn to use it.

And on occasion I also need to organize the amount of productive apps in my life.

The reality speaks for itself: our lives will continue to be conducted through correspondence, and it will even increase.

The statistics reflect that text messages of various types have become our main means of communication, more than video or phone calls, so disconnecting from this option is not realistic.

There is no choice, in all my investigations into the subject I found only one solution - to accept the fact that I will never be able to return to everyone's messages, and yes, we have to deal with the fact that there will be those who will be offended or angry.

It is impossible to reach satisfaction

And this is perhaps the most frustrating factor in the experience of messages around the clock: it is impossible to feel, even for the moment that we have cleaned a table, to reach zero messages in e-mail or WhatsApp.

Hence the tremendous satisfaction I felt when there was no message waiting for me.

I don't think I've felt this kind of relief in years, maybe the last time I managed to get to the bottom of the laundry basket, and I can't remember when that happened.

And finally, a message to my mother

Mom, I love you so much!

I'm glad you send me a link to every interesting article you read and send me every exciting or funny video they send you, and I also really thank you for the long voice messages you leave me with a lot of warmth and affection, I wanted you to know that I will never be able to read or watch all the content you shower on me out of desire Real to enrich my world, I hope you forgive me.

Immersed!

Paula Rosenberg, photo: Or Danon

Or, the photographer in the studio, did a "paparazzi" for me while I was immersed.

When I looked at the picture she sent me, I asked myself if Bilby, the smiling and playful figure emblazoned on my shirt, could even exist today, even in imagination, in a world of media overload and excessive monitoring of our time and availability.

One thing is certain - she wouldn't even try to answer all the messages on WhatsApp, she had much more interesting things to do.

Do this to me:

"The Attention Revolution", by Micah Goodman

I recommend this book even though I haven't finished reading it yet, I'm in the middle of reading it and it's eye-opening.

It is interesting to read the effects of the digital revolution on our development, on relationships, precisely from a man like Micah Goodman, who brings many of the things from his personal point of view and his life story, which he interweaves with current scientific data, just the way I like it.

This is not a book that goes against technology, but a book that can illuminate points in our relationship with it.

Info@paulanatural.co.il

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