Question: How do we handle the social pressure—feeling like we have to check our phones constantly?
Dr. Kevin Skinner: I think the easiest solution to that is to create clear expectations and boundaries when people communicate with you. "Just so you know, I will be communicating or checking my messages from this time to this time of the day. I have other things that I'm focusing on at other times. So, I'm a person who checks my messages between this time and this time."
If you feel like somebody's pressuring you to respond quicker—now, if you work for them and they are an employer, you still can have appropriate boundaries and say, "I'm checking my messages from this time to this time because I'm gonna be doing some self-care." And so, you have the opportunity to create individual boundaries because if you don't, then with today's technology, it will overwhelm you.
And that to me is not good for any of our mental health to be always "on" or available. That's not how life has been in the past. And if it's that way in the future, we're gonna have more problems and more anxiety.
So, we need to create appropriate boundaries and let everybody know that—again, I know that can happen at work at times and we may have those kind of communications, but it's still effective if we have an agreement: we're not going to communicate outside of work hours unless it's an absolute emergency. And if it's an emergency every night, then we need to change our business and our model.
