A day without any electronic communication

Experiment:

Maurizio Calo Caligaris

(Modifying The Environment To Reduce Stress)

Stanford University

Put cellphone in drawer

The Setup:

Blocked facebook.com

Blocked gmail

Why?I used to constantly check e-mail, FB & phone multiple times every day.

This was creating unnecessarystress, and I didn’t even realize it.

Why?I wanted to experiment with changing my environment & understand how this changes behavior.

Why?Making (temporary) radical changes gave me a fresh new perspective and allowed me to gain unique insights.

By not having the distraction of my phone, my personal interactions became much more meaningful and enjoyable.

Insight#1

I now avoid checking my phone when I’m with other people. I also try to meet in person rather than converse over phone (whenever possible)

Insight#2I felt much less stressed out by not having to constantly check my e-mail, but, as a Stanford student, it is highly impractical to stop using e-mail.

I disabled e-mail push notifications on my phone.

Insight#3I realized Facebook really is a wonderful communication tool, and is not worth it quitting completely. At the same time, I shouldn’t check Facebook every 10 min.

I redirected facebook.com to another website that triggers me to do pushups after every time I open FB in a new tab.

See more details here:http://www.slideshare.net/mauriziocalo/addicted-to-facebook-get-ripped-instead

I’m Maurizio Calo Caligaris and I’m an aspiring entrepreneur / CS masters student at Stanford. I’m interested in behavior design, life design, self-improvement & using technology to transform people’s lives.

maurizio@cs.stanford.edu

Thanks!