Do you need a digital detox? – The National

Do you need a digital detox? – The National

We spend more time on our phones than ever. According to a report by data analytics company Statistica, we spent an average of about 90 minutes every day on social media in 2012. By January 2022, we were averaging 147 minutes every day. Add messaging apps, email, games, streaming services and the occasional SMS text message into the mix, and that's a fair amount of screen time.

For some people, being glued to the small screen is not an issue. Others, though, wish for greater digital balance. With this latter group in mind, we developed a digital well-being retreat, the first of its kind in the region.

We piloted our mindfulness-based digital well-being programme last month in Muscat, Oman. The participants, 20 young adults from Saudi Arabia, had signed up for a five-day retreat designed to " …recalibrate their relationships with technology".