Prague
Are you willing to use technology to help people?
Or do you let technology use you?
My fingers feel tired after typing for most of today. I decided to dictate this post to change things up and to save time.
In this case, I at least appear to be using technology to help you guys. But I was not always this disciplined.
I allowed technology to use me in the past by gluing myself to a series of glowing rectangular screens. Check email. Check replies on social media. Do more. Work harder.
I deeply feared missing out. That fear scared me into being used by technology.
Of course this isn’t really possible. Technology cannot use you because it is not sentient, being an inanimate concept. You and I have something called “free will”. But you wouldn’t necessarily believe that truth if you glance at the world today.
People Watching
One of my favorite pastimes while circling the globe is people watching.
Whether waiting for a flight or eating at a restaurant most glue their eyes to their phone screens instead of connecting with human beings. Even making eye contact seems like a Herculean task.
This is people allowing technology to use them. It’s almost like phones and laptops lasso attention spans, not unlike a puppeteer operating a puppet.
Everyone is entitled to use technology. But letting tech use you serves only as a useless distraction.
Most people use technology to isolate themselves when the idea behind this gift is to connect and help the world.
Don’t allow technology to use you.
Use technology to be truly helpful in order to break this habit. Employ technology not to distract yourself but to create for other human beings.
Dictate content to share across the web. Help people. Serve people. Publish something positive to social media.
Don’t fall into a YouTube vortex for the next 4 hours. Stop being a voracious consumer.
Be a Creator
Be a creator. Make something useful for others. Create something beneficial for humanity.
This is the most direct way to use technology instead of being used by technology.
Admittedly, shifting in this direction feels uncomfortable at first because most of us distract ourselves with technology rather than facing our fears.
Video
Use technology to create peaceful videos like this sunset in Turkey.
Stop Distracting Yourself
As someone who’s circled the globe for the past 12 years I sometimes use technology to lessen my loneliness. Trying to distract myself with mindless entertainment via my phone or laptop to drown out those lonely feelings is a temporary solution. Eventually, I realized that helping people with technology is the only way to feel happy, peaceful and fulfilled as I live the digital nomad lifestyle.
Love never asks. Love only gives. Remember these two life truths to use technology for good and to feel good.
Maintaining a busy schedule, working hard and trying desperately to achieve are distracting mechanisms guaranteed to push your fears deeper out of awareness.
Technology behaves like a willing partner in this distraction game. Checking your email for the 50th time today sounds absurd at first glance. But when you’re not even aware of this distracting tendency you basically become enslaved to your neurosis.
Become hyper aware of how you choose to use your phone. Before doing anything just ask yourself the simple question: Why?
The ego may not like the answer but with honesty you can use technology to be truly helpful instead of distracting yourself with this gift.
We can do much together by using technology for helping all.
Practical Tips for Bloggers
Use technology to be truly helpful.
Create detailed content.
Build meaningful connections with bloggers on the same page even if it means being a picky networker.
Employ technology primarily to meet those ends.
Do not use your phone to distract yourself. Resist giving in to the temptation to check your email for the 30th time today. Stop reviewing blogging metrics 2-3 times daily. Never use technology as a crutch because no-thing can do the full blogging work for you.
For example, some bloggers attempt to use ai to write and publish full blog posts. In essence, the intelligence appears to do the blogging work for them. Perhaps the temporary results of ranking on page 1 of Google or driving a heavy volume of traffic seems enticing. But none of these ai bloggers have yet to prove:
- meaningful friendships
- exponentially increasing blogging business
- a growing stable of hungry customers
- an ever expanding client base
as a clear, credible effect of the technology cause consistent with using ai to write full blog posts.
Why?
#1: It is not happening now. If it were, ai bloggers would plaster images of happy clients and customers beaming:
“We are so happy to have been fooled by these artificially spun articles NOT mindfully, soulfully and creatively written by a human!”
2: It sure as hell ain’t happening in the future.
As I’ve observed over my nearly 15 year blogging career, fear projected as greed and desperation compels bloggers to seek something for nothing. The desire motivates them to fool people temporarily until people catch on, tire of being treated like an asshole (figuring out that a $40 per month glorified bot wrote something not a genuine, compassionate, skilled human being) and stop following the bloggers. As an added bonus, these bloggers lose all credibility and eventually disappear all together. I have observed this happen 100’s of times through many absurd boom-bust blogging cycles since 2008.
Technology is not a “skill developing” short cut. Skip the skills development and you skip the highly targeted, heavy blog traffic and increasing blogging income effects of your skills development cause.
Technology is a supplemental tool that wise bloggers can use – but do not need – to handle rote, repetitive tasks or to aid a somewhat sleeping mind, temporarily, of course.
Practical Uses of Technology for Bloggers
Consider these ideas:
- dictate blog posts from voice to a Google Document (per the blog post you read now)
- dictate genuine blog comments by using your phone to rest your overworked fingers exhausted from typing
- set an alarm via a phone or web browser timer to limit social media engaging to 10 minute intervals 2-3 times daily; Chromodoro is my favorite
- casually cruise the web for 1 or 2 hours if you wish only after completing blogging work for the day
- consider personalizing videos and/or audio messages via social channels to add a charming touch with technology
- live broadcast on Facebook and YouTube to connect with your blogging community
- host Twitter Spaces to bond with your readership
These are just a few tips to point you in the right direction.
Conclusion
Technology can be used to unite and prosper or to divide and struggle.
All change occurs one mind at a time.
The first and only mind to focus on is yours.
Your Turn
How do you use technology to be truly helpful as a blogger?
Or are you struggling to prevent technology from swallowing you whole?
