Connection, the thing many of us crave at the core of our humanness, can now be accessed at our fingertips. Anytime, anywhere, with friends or with strangers. Providing you have a device and 4G, it’s never been easier to log on and connect.
The overwhelmingly accessible nature of technology also means that we, as individuals, have never been easier to access, too. The trend forecasting agency WGSN pinpointed 2026 as the year of “great exhaustion”, driven in part by excessive digital noise. I mean, it’s not really surprising, is it? The unclosed loops of WhatsApp chats, emails marked URGENT, social media DMs and missed calls – they all compound to create a never-ending cycle of notification debt, incurring guilt the longer you fail to reply.
The recent social media trend for “going analogue” with retro tech (reverting to Walkman CD players to eliminate song choice), choosing tactile experiences over doomscrolling and downloading screen-time monitoring apps is a sure signal that a shift is under way. Many of us are moving towards more conscious tech consumption, craving autonomy over how we spend our time. Yet despite this shift, the reality for many of us is that our work exists online. I’ve spent a long time researching, experimenting and trying different ways to build better relationships with technology, and there are four changes that have helped reduce overwhelm significantly: fasting, muting, eliminating and connecting.
Hear me out: intermittent fasting from technology has changed my life. In the way that some people reduce the time window in which they consume food to allow the cell regeneration process of autophagy to take place, our minds can benefit from recalibration time, too. Think of it as a mini brain recovery period from the influx of information. I like to avoid apps between the hours of 9pm and 9am. Sustainability activist Venetia La Manna created #offline48, a movement where she encourages people to disconnect every weekend.
As for muting, it’s time we realised that muting apps, WhatsApp groups (and people) isn’t shady, it’s a step towards regaining autonomy over where your focus goes. In a world where algorithms serve you info you never signed up for, altering the settings on your phone to limit notifications can be incredibly helpful.
Reducing your screen time also comes down to eliminating platforms that soak up precious hours. I like Adobe Acrobat Studio because it’s integrated with Adobe Express, so I can reformat, resize and enhance my documents with creative assets within the same platform. It takes me a matter of minutes to design or brand documents, rather than the hours I used to spend fiddling or jumping between applications. Acrobat Studio also has a personalised AI Assistant that helps me with everything from editing documents to generating summaries of content within my documents.
Last, it’s easy to think we’re keeping relationships alive with digital gestures such as “pebbling” – sending reels or memes as a way of saying: “I’m still here, and this penguin riding a camel reminded me of you.” But these interactions can feel like watered-down orange squash when we should be filling up on the juicy, freshly squeezed stuff: real-life connection. Joining an in-person community, swapping memes for phone calls, or replacing colleague online calls with a walk-and-talk are ways to regain a sense of real connection.
Instead of feeling pressured to be always on, try an app-free weekend, a phone call with a friend (so much better than a voice note), or a screen-free “nothing day” to reclaim your time, guilt-free. And remember, always check yourself before your notifications.
Daisy Morris is the author of Community is Your Currency and founder of content studio and community consultancy The Self Hood
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