Putting the Screens Down

Adam Alter starts his TED talk by explaining that for those who work in the tech world, technology use is often limited in the home, which he found to be an interesting phenomenon. After learning this fact, he decided to study the effects that screens can have on peoples' lives.

Alter talks about how the time that people have throughout the day to spend on personal hobbies, social interactions and other things they care about has reduced in the past decade due to that time being taken over by our use of screens. One of the reasons that we tend to spend so much time on various apps is because they have robbed us of stopping cues. These cues tell people when to stop and move on – for example, not too long ago TV shows would end and people would have to wait a week to watch the next one. With endless scrolling options, these stopping cues have since been eradicated, and as a result we spend more time on screens that make us less happy.

Adam Alter encourages viewers to stop and experience the moment, and says that eventually, not using their technology and enjoying the present will become their new habit.