The collapse of adults often begins with the sound of the news.
This is not a simple joke, but a true portrayal of contemporary society in the tide of digitalization.
Imagine an office worker who is busy with work and finally has time to lie in bed and enjoy a moment of tranquility at night. However, at this time, the message reminder on the mobile phone suddenly sounded, and the work-related information was like a ruthless raindrop, breaking this rare peace.
Such a scene has appeared in each of our lives to a greater or lesser extent.
According to the latest data, the number of netizens in China has reached 107.9 billion people, of which 10 are instant messaging users4.7 billion, accounting for almost the vast majority of all smartphone users. This means that in this digital age, almost everyone is using instant messengers.
The convenience of chat software has undoubtedly changed the way we communicate, allowing us to connect with others anytime, anywhere. However, this 24-hour uninterrupted connectivity also comes with an unexpected burden.
The popularity of instant messengers has blurred the boundaries between our work and life. Frequent reminders of work messages leave many people in a passive state, ready to respond to the demands of work.
After work, it was originally a personal rest time, but it was often disturbed by work news. This passive state of work not only affects the quality of one's life, but can also lead to long-term psychological stress and physical health problems.
There is a concept in psychology called "cognitive miserliness", which refers to the fact that when we are faced with complex information, the brain will give up rational thinking and rely on intuitive judgment to reduce the psychological burden.
In such a state, our ability to think will decline, and it is easy for us to become "dominated" people who passively receive information.
Being in this state for a long time will not only affect our decision-making ability, but may also lead to a series of physical and psychological problems.
It is not difficult to find that although instant messaging tools improve the efficiency and convenience of communication, they also invisibly increase our psychological burden. The quality and efficiency of communication does not depend solely on speed and frequency.
We need to realize that the purpose of communication is to better solve problems and convey emotions, not simply to pursue speed and frequency.
In this instant messaging-centric world, our lives seem to be tied down by apps like chat apps.
There's no denying that these chat apps bring us great convenience, but they also become a potential burden, especially for adults:
This burden is not only temporal, but also psychological.
Imagine that the moment you come home from work, what should have been a time to relax is broken by one "message reminder" after another. Most of these messages come from work, sometimes urgent matters that must be answered immediately, and sometimes trivial matters that do not matter.
Whatever their nature, they ruthlessly encroach on our private time and blur the boundaries between our lives and work. Some people even choose to use two mobile phones to separate work and life in order to escape this endless distraction.
However, such practices are often not understood by the company, but are seen as lacking a sense of responsibility.
Obviously, these invisible stresses not only affect our productivity, but can also have a serious impact on our physical and mental health.
Excessive response to "message alerts" can lead to cognitive miserliness – when there is too much information, our brains will abandon rational thinking in favor of relying on intuition to make judgments in order to lighten the load.
Being in this state for a long time can lead to a decrease in thinking and even a physical stress response.
We must recognize that even the most advanced communication tools should be at the service of work and life.
We should learn to manage these tools wisely, consciously delineate the boundaries between work and life, and set aside undisturbed private time for ourselves. Not only does this help to be more productive, but it also protects our mental health.
However, it is not easy to do this. The work culture of modern society often requires us to be available and responsive at all times. This culture has created a phenomenon where we still need to respond to work messages at any time, even after hours.
I have to say that this kind of overtime seems to have become an unspoken rule in the workplace.
Needless to say, in this era of being covered by a flood of information, mobile phones have become an indispensable part of each of us.
The sound of news is often the beginning of an adult's collapse.
Especially for professionals, they are being invisibly roped all the time**, and with every "ding-dong" sound, our psychological defense line seems to be collapsing little by little.
In this fast-paced society, we seem to forget that real communication and life shouldn't be like this.
It can be said that what we are facing is not only information overload, but also spiritual trouble.
Every time the phone vibrates, it is like a spiritual **, and we seem to have to respond to this virtual world at any time. This state not only makes our lives fragmented, but also invisibly consumes our mental strength.
As Richard Dawkins said in "The Selfish Gene", human genes are inherently selfish, and we always want to be able to reach someone immediately when we need it, but we don't want to be disturbed at any time.
It is this contradiction that makes us sink deeper and deeper into the ocean of instant messaging.
So we have to realize that the quality of communication is far more important than speed and frequency.
True communication should not be a quick response on the surface, but a deep emotional exchange. We should learn to slow down and rethink the way we communicate in these fast-paced times. What we need is not more message reminders, but more quality communication.
To sum up, in this noisy world, we need to learn to turn off our phones, look up, and see the real world and life in front of us.
After all, happiness is not far away, but close at hand, but if we keep our heads down and only stare at the screen of our phones, how can we see true happiness?