E-book 'Why you are less accessible than you think'

Available mid-November 2022

Available for 14.95 euros.

Individual consultation

Information and advice about reducing or consciously dealing with smartphone use

Many people and parents struggle with using the smartphones. A frequently heard and justified argument is that parents are concerned about smartphone use, but do not want to deny their children social contacts or are afraid that their children will be left out.

Are you looking for a helping hand with insights so that you can deal with the smartphone differently? Feel free to call or email for more information.

For organizations (education and welfare)

Support for professionals

The Ecopedagogue works together with educational and welfare institutions in the field of smartphone issues. The Ecopedagogue can be hired for information evenings with/for parents and to come up with a plan of action together with professionals within their educational institution.

Consultation and advice on smartphone use among children/young people Providing information so that a tailor-made action plan can be put together within your organization (such as an informative evening or policy choices

As an educator, I am always looking for answers on how we can improve the well-being of young people, their parents and relationships. In my work I noticed that the young people I work with were having more and more difficulty resolving conflicts in contact with the other or even establishing a connection in real life that I did not want to immediately pathologize. One of the teachers from whom I learned a lot pointed out environmental factors before we have to make diagnoses about people's internal world: I have always believed in this. Could there be something in our environment that made people more difficult to connect and contact? That question led me on an interesting information journey.

In 2020 my research into the harmful effects of smartphone use started.

In the months that followed, the scientific publications and the patterns I began to see myself convinced me more and more of the debilitating effect of these devices on our relational and mental well-being.

Early 2022, fast forward. On holiday far away from home, my phone beeped: it was a distant acquaintance who wanted to know about an appointment that was far from happening. I boiled with irritation and immediately thought why: Imagine if this had happened to me in the 1990s, then I would have been allowed to walk to the reception of the campsite about 10-20 times a day to receive nonsensical information from the home front. answer non-urgent questions. So far the relaxed, disconnected holiday feeling?

After this holiday I exchanged my smartphone for another one, with which I can still be reached in many ways, but no longer have a scrolling smartphone that can attack my dopamine receptors in my brain. I will provide more information about these possibilities in the e-book and the sessions.

The effects shortly afterwards were quite clear to me, exactly as I found them in literature and articles before:

The brain fog disappeared, because I started to feel more anonymous and more in my own life, I felt more connected and self-confident. The 'loose threads' stress, as I call it, disappeared: people I hadn't seen for years and perhaps wanted to congratulate via a notification, or briefly felt bad about it because I forgot, disappeared:

Not in the offline view, not in the eye and with that: stress from the heart.

I could still use the internet at home; so accessible outside the home, but not occupied by matters that had nothing to do with what I was going to do outside my front door. More air, space and peace! My concentration, relationships and mood improved significantly I felt control over things that happened around me, not those that were somewhere far away and that I could do little about. The powerlessness disappeared. I suddenly realized the social pressure after getting rid of my smartphone, because people regularly approached me with irritation when we saw each other because I had not responded - in time - to quick messages: I can be reached by email, by telephone or by just passing by. I was shocked by the fact that people expect us to expect an answer after a Whatsapp message without making another attempt to contact them ourselves: what constant pressure. Over time, people with my reaction time became a lot more patient when they knew that I no longer want to and cannot respond in that way: that gave me some air!

I am now designing the first information evening together with a secondary school and several parents have already approached me for advice in this area.