Alone on the computer, this is what everyday working life has been like for many schoolchildren, students and professionals - and also for a large proportion of the employees at SPIEGEL - for more than a year.
It's exhausting, also mentally.
And behavior in digital space often creates additional stress.
Researchers recommend digital hygiene that many of us haven't learned.
In this context, US scientists from Carnegie Mellon University have examined our handling of browser tabs.
With the help of these tabs above the browser search bar, you can keep different websites open at the same time like in an index card system: Mail programs (in my case: 3 different), social networks (also 3), music (1), news pages (4) and articles that you always see wanted to read before (11).
The American study has shown: Many people feel overwhelmed by the large number of open tabs.
Enlarge image
Who should keep an eye on it?
Behind all of this, the evaluation shows, there is the desire not to miss or forget anything - but also the concern that (supposedly) important information will not be found again.
Aniket Kittur, head of the research team, compared the fear that content would be lost forever if it was moved out of view to the effect of a black hole: “The fear of this effect was so strong that it forced people to tabs to be kept open, although the number was becoming unmanageable, ”he said.
Even when people felt ashamed of the sheer number of websites open, many couldn't bring themselves to just close tabs.
2483 percent more searches for mindfulness apps
How can you counteract digital overload? One possibility are online courses and apps that are supposed to help with psychological stress. The interest in such offers is growing. This is also suggested by a survey by the British organization Orcha, which evaluates apps for digital health. Accordingly, the number of searches for apps that are supposed to strengthen mental health has multiplied during the lockdown: The number of requests on the topic of stress rose by 113 percent, and by 437 percent on relaxation. The increase in searches for apps for more mindfulness was an impressive 2483 percent.
If you want to follow the impulse to quickly google all app offers and compare recommendations in several tabs, you should perhaps pause for a moment: there are certainly digital applications that can help reduce digital stress.
However, it is also possible that such anti-stress apps only increase the stress in the end.
Are there any better solutions?
State-approved offers of help for a way out of the digital suction?
Hardly so far.
But the urgency to design digital work in such a way that it does not harm mental health will not go away with the end of the pandemic.
So take care of yourself.
And: just close a few tabs!
I'll do that too.
Just not the most important ones.
Heartily
Your Viola Kiel
(
Feedback & suggestions?
)
Abstract
My reading recommendations of the week:
The US expects
swarms of cicadas
, billions of insects, maybe even trillions.
What do you do with so many cicadas?
One idea: you could eat them.
Elon Musk
is a weird guy.
And could actually provide the impetus for a new era in human history.
My colleague Benjamin Schulz
hired
himself out during the shutdown
and revealed how you can build a workbench for 150 euros.
If that's what you want.
Freedoms for vaccinated people - with the right
criminal business model
, money can also be earned from it, for example with forged vaccination cards.
But how quickly do you get such a vaccination certificate?
Research by ZEIT ONLINE shows: frighteningly fast.
"The forest was like our church," says the famous forest scientist
Suzanne Simard
and explains in a long interview why she believes in mother trees.
If you don't want to read that much, you can also listen to the conversation.
Quiz*
1. How big is the Gaza Strip?
2. What is the current share of CO₂ in greenhouse gas emissions?
3. The resistance fighter Sophie Scholl would have turned 100 a few days ago.
Where was she executed?
* You can find the answers at the bottom of the newsletter.
Picture of the week
Photo: Miguel Candela / SOPA Images / ddp images
For around 500 years
, humans have
been
trying to create human-like machines that are supposed to make life easier or more beautiful.
The “Robots” exhibition currently on view at the Science Museum in Hong Kong shows what bizarre excesses these attempts can assume.
One of the exhibits is the »Animatronic Baby«: a robot with the appearance of a baby, whose pose is reminiscent of that of the baby Jesus.
A rogue who thinks of the unfulfilled promise of salvation of robotics.
footnote
The area of Mexico City sinks
50
centimeters in some places - every year.
This speed has been almost constant for several decades, as scientists have now discovered.
The cause is the extraction of groundwater under the metropolis.
Although it is no longer allowed to pump out water in certain areas, the experts suspect that the sagging of the area will hardly be able to be stopped.
Recommendations from science
Environment: In an interview with SPIEGEL, climate researcher Johan Rockström says how the hot season can still be prevented
Climate: When will the Earth system overturn?
Analysis: Why politics has to listen more to science - the lessons from Corona
Biology: How bees find their way to the flowers
History: The astonishingly accurate star maps of the Hessian Landgrave Wilhelm IV.
* Quiz answers
1) 360 square kilometers, a little more than a third of the area of Berlin
2) about 88 percent
3) in the Stadelheim correctional facility in Munich