Digital Detox: How to Set Healthy Tech Boundaries for Mental Well-Being | Eckhart Tolle

these devices it breaks the relation with other people you dinner with don't allow these things to take over your life that's vitally [Music] important I work with technology and I actually um I was quite it was quite interesting to hear you talk about technology a few times in the past couple of days um and the way that you mentioned that SM bones are actually an extension of our minds the way that Ed the internet is actually um it's a space for our unconscious mind to actually be reactive so one of the things I do for work is to raise a bit of the ethical questions around that and the things that we usually call um digital nudges which is when we try to influence other people through technology so I would really love to hear a bit of your opinion and maybe your advice if there is a way for us to use technology as a tool and as a channel to actually increase Humanity Consciousness and presence yes so in itself of course it's neutral the technology is neutral it's not either bad or good it depends how it's used uh it is at the moment it is to a large extent a reflection of the unconscious mind so if you want to learn about human unconsciousness you want to learn about the human ego just go there and read what people post uh and look at the reactivity of people on social media and so on the comments they leave uh you can learn a lot about unconsciousness identification with mental positions so the first thing of course is uh what be be careful with what you put out there what what kind of thing you post if you post things on online is it reactive give yourself a moment when you read something before you type in an answer or a comment give yourself a moment and go within and avoid um making people wrong you can you can talk about issues but uh don't make people wrong wrong and amplify your ego by making others wrong even though their me their position political or otherwise you may regard as completely misguided or erroneous there's still a human being behind that so you can put forward arguments against somebody's perspective or viewpoint without making another human being wrong so how what you put out is very important is your communication conscious or not or is it reactive and then it can be used for other purposes the I'm there too sometimes there are certain places where I appear on could go to YouTube or whatever and then uh suddenly there's a spiritual teacher talking so do you professionally work with uh what exactly do you do in your work with the into that in involves the media or pretty much involv the uh the creation the ideas around the digital product and services so creating the the product that people actually use and designing the interfaces that people actually use on phones and other other computers right there are some uh meditation sites on all these things so that's great potential for raising Consciousness there somebody recommended to me uh several apps for meditation uh which I now have on my phone I haven't tried them yet they' been there for a while but I have four or five that are there want to try them out so that's the very thing that otherwise would clutter your mind can actually also be used to bring about space or spaciousness in your mind so it doesn't necessarily mean that when you have your phone or in 90 9% of cases when people look there their mind is being cluttered but maybe they're on a meditation app maybe they're looking at a a beautiful spacious picture and or listening to some sound or say take a conscious breath have a little reminder every two hours to take a take a conscious breath and bring spaciousness oh yes spaciousness so the very same thing that otherwise clutters your mind can now unclutter your mind it's possible so I believe that is also going to grow now and it has to because otherwise that technology could potentially Drive humans completely in say to remove their ability to focus on anything for more than a few seconds uh people create young people who are totally uncentered have no SPAC within don't even communicate with humans anymore because they prefer to communicate uh digitally so the these things are important what what you put out is important so always take take into consideration whether this brings people to presence or whether it clutters somebody's mind and perhaps you can combine of course what you do needs to be also commercially viable so but I believe you can combine the two is not necessarily a question of either it's commercially viable and it clutters people's minds or its presence and it we're not going to we are going to go out of business doesn't have to be like like that it's up to you to be creative use be the more still you are the more creative insights you will have into and you you might get some amazing ideas of what is possible I can't tell you what is possible I don't know enough about it I know very little about it so but you're in a wonderful position so allow yourself to go deep enough within so because then it is then the creative ideas seem to come and if you find a thing that is not only brings people to presentence but also helps your company to grow then that then becomes a conscious business which is wonderful it's challenging of course it's challenging so don't let all your attention be absorbed though by that kind of activity take still you still need to connect with nature take it as much as possible away from there connect with nature and then bring it back uh another thing that's just in connection with this not not perhaps directly related to your question but related to this [Music] um what tends to happen is it uh these devices uh people are never they're still in they're in bed and they're still doing stuff on it and that it takes you over there at dinner and they're doing stuff on it it breaks the relation with other people you dinner with I can see I see people in restaurants uh the couples sitting sitting at having dinner together and both are on their phones now that probably means they've known each other for a while if it happens on the first date let uh that the first date will probably be the last one but it happens after they've known each other for 2 years then it's almost a normal thing that they're not present with each other or then then they exchange a few words and then she looks at the phone again and then he stares into space and then she's still on her phone I've actually observed it she's still she's still on her phone and he's staring into space and then finally he gets out his phone too because he doesn't want to be staring into space and then I wonder are they texting each other uh a good two good things that I in I'm I learned that in some huge companies I believe it might be VW in Germany well they've had enough problems but now they uh they tell their employees after 6:00 p.m. not to they're not allowed to use the company phones anymore not to deal with emails or anything they need to get off and that's a very wise thing 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