Mobiles and laptops are seductive, addictive and beyond effective. But it is weird how much we all stroke, coo and fret over them.
When phones batteries become depleted we fuss over them like sick children, rushing them to the hospital that is a charging plug. Whilst in the past, a conversational silence would propel us to a deeper level of intimacy or truth, now we simply scurry for the oblivion of our ‘home’ buttons like the addicts we know we are.
They are also swiftly ruining our lives, eyes, concentration, social awareness and ability to forge our own thoughts. If life requires balance and equilibrium then we have completely fallen from the tightrope when it comes to our obsession with devices and the Internet.
Your phone screen signs off your day and rouses you into the next morning. It guides you through a distracted breakfast before many people then travel straight to an office and spend 40 hours staring into an even bigger screen on a laptop.
Enough! It’s time for some analogue rehab.
Trigg is a paper diary that is dedicated entirely to you. Unlike the Internet, our notebook is empty it’s ready to be filled up by your personality and life rather than arriving pre-loaded with ideas from everybody else.
Here are 10 more reasons why a copy of Trigg will help you digitally detox.
- Our Sanctuaries Are Being Destroyed
As our world spins faster and faster into the future we discover less and less refuge for our own individual thoughts. Travel previously provided headspace. The bedroom was once a quiet and sensual place. Holidays would be strewn with recently devoured paper novels. The lunch hour was previously alive with dialogue.
We’ve slowly rubbed out these invisible personal sanctums and replaced them with the homogenous experiences. We all look at the same things and think the same thoughts. All of us use the same few programs, the same keyboard, checking the same apps and watching the same things.
Yet your own cerebral playground could exist in your bag right now. Trigg is offline and in hand. Curate your precious thoughts to paper to launch a meditative journey. Reflect on blank possibilities. Your Trigg can be a tiny kingdom of thoughts where you walk around bumping into your own ideas and ruminations.
- Taste the Void
The vivid possibilities that stare out of a blank white page are a relief. You can do anything, draw anything, sketch anything or simply sit, simply think or simply wait. The page won’t run out of batteries, nor will its license run out. There’s no pressure. The page is yours and belongs to no one else. Lose yourself in this wilderness.
- Ideas Fly, Not Crawl.
Ever heard the phrase: “the bug’s eye view?” Ever heard that? No. Because no-one values the perspective of a creature that can never see above the blades of grass it toils against constantly.
The bug has no perspective. Whereas the “bird’s eye view” is a panorama that delivers maximum awareness of its environment, targets and territory.
A paper diary, journal or blank page has so much potential to induce macro thinking. Use a thicker pen to make your writing bigger and thus make your ideas bigger. Let your frame of perspective pull out. Draw shapes. Invent symbols. Connect them with fast streaks of ink. Get boisterous. Now try and do that in your phone. It’s disastrous. So let’s stop crawling around like bugs, because ideas are designed to fly.
- Take A Holiday With A Pen.
Picking up a pen makes you think differently. Writing by hand activates a part of your brain called the reticular activating system. This brain function gives a high value to anything you truly focus on and allows you to recall the information with greater clarity and speed.
Ever noticed how writing a date down in your diary helps it stick in your brain? Imagine if you harnessed the same empowering force to transforming bigger the intentions based on your sense of self, passions or relationships…
- Eight Item Overload
We have too many things to think about. No one can deny that. Research suggests that our short-term memory is, on average, only capable of storing seven items of information. Yet we have dozens of goals per day, both big or small.
In general we have two flavours of tasks. Maintenance tasks: washing clothes, buying cat food, paying bills. And then larger, more juicy targets that our ambition designs to improve our life or remove us from danger. If we commit these intentions to paper we reinforce their importance, create a physical realisation and accountability whilst stripping away any anxiety that these ephemeral yet vital thoughts will be forgotten.
- You’ll sleep better. And live longer.
Back in 2001 scientists discovered a range of ‘blue light’ that is particularly bright existing between 415 to 445 on nanometer range. It’s beautifully bright and now lives in all our screens making them look like the sunrise. These range of light disrupts the production of melatonin and causes insomnia. But that isn’t all.
A lighting research scientist called Dr. Richard Hansler, from John Carroll University in Ohio explains: "I learned it’s the blue component in ordinary white light that is suppressing the production of melatonin. And melatonin not only helps you sleep but is a marvelous material that has a very big influence on health in general; specifically, if you don’t have enough you may develop diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and even a couple kinds of cancer.”
- Sketching is Jogging
Enjoying the space and freedom of a blank page to sketch shapes or thoughts not only gets individuals closer to comprehending abstract concepts but also allows ideas to diverge in more creative ways. Mind mapping boosts memory and fosters creativity and understanding.
Furthermore the varied act of handwriting will build muscle and break down the repetitive impact of typing hundreds of thousands of keyboard characters that you’re going to have to do every week, for your entire life. And unlike laptops, paper notebooks rarely cause migraines. Nor will they occasionally whisper urges for you to hurl them through the nearest window in a rage.
- No CTRL + Z For Me.
You will never accidentally delete all your notes in Trigg. Nor will you need to plug it into a “time machine”. You can flip back to disturb your happy thoughts and intentions as gently as a breeze. Journals don’t get a virus. They don’t crash. Nor will it die if you spill a little coffee on it. It won’t expire at the top of a mountain, nor will it lock you out if there’s no WIFI. Thieves won’t give it a second glance.
- It Won’t Betray
Trigg isn’t made by a greedy multinational company who has designed it to betray your every material wish or habit. Our notebook do not pulsate with a hive of web cookies covertly inviting a hoard of advertisers into your life with their distracting messages, noisy beeps, lurid offers and constant reminders. Your laptop betrays you every time it reconnects with the Internet. This is a diary that is on your side.
- Revel In The Catharsis Of Crossing Out
Let’s not lie: crossing out feels great. It’s one of life’s tiny pleasures. But too much consideration could crush this observation so let’s not dwell on it, rather let's conclude any nagging tasks so you can run the stake of your pen through its heart like the vampire on your time that it has been.
Now, no-one likes a hypocrite. So let’s close this feature and get offline.
We call you to come for an analogue retreat … to dwell amongst your own thoughts, your own ideas and your own words.
By Matthew Bennett
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