Hey friends,
We just wrapped up the first cohort of the 30-Day Digital Declutter web app on February 1st. First off, a big congratulations to all of you who got through, regardless of how it went. It takes a lot to commit to 30 days of any sort of behaviour change, let alone habits as deeply ingrained as smartphone use and digital media consumption.
For those of you who don’t know, my friend Nick and I have been building a tool to help people reshape their relationship with technology (cut out doomscrolling, and other time sucking habits) so they can reconnect with hobbies, loved ones, etc. For more information checkout: https://intentionaltech.ca
With the first cohort done (I call it Alpha because … I wouldn’t be comfortable calling this beta software yet. Maybe next time.) we’re taking feedback, building new features, and planning big changes for the next cohort, hopefully in March. So, let’s talk about that!
TLDR: We’re spending the month of February going over feedback and making improvements to the content and community aspects before we launch a beta in March.
To put this into context, let me explain how the cohorts came about so we can figure out where they’re going.
The 30 day Digital Declutter Cohorts are something I’ve been envisioning for a few years now. I started studying “psychological interventions for problematic smartphone use” during my PhD. I had planned to do a few studies of my own, coming up with ways to modify smartphones and user interfaces to reduce the addictive aspects of smartphones and attention economy apps, but life took a different turn and I dropped out.
I had mostly put that dream away until one day, I released a YouTube video on my research and it went viral . Then I realized, I could still help people in the way I’d hoped during my PhD, just through YouTube and an online community instead of purely academically.
That led to version 1.
The Attention Economy video came with a deluge of extremely positive comments and a lot of folks asking the productive question “How do I actually change my smartphone habits?”
That’s when I realized I could put my old research to use.
We ran the first “cohort” as not much more than some Google forms and a Discord server. It was a totally ad-hoc appraoch.
I wanted to get what I knew about psychological interventions out there as quickly as possible and I thought we’d figure out how best to structure it later.
And it was a pretty big success in a lot of ways. There was a lot of fruitful discussion, people sharing what worked for them, building on my recommendations, supporting one another. There was a really strong communal feel.
On the other hand, the lack of structure led to a lot of people falling off, feeling confused or aimless, and losing motivation.
Cue Version 2.
So, I set out to add some structure, scaffolding, and scientific rigour.
To do so, I recruited the help of my good friend Nick. Together we built the January version of the 30 day digital declutter cohorts - the webapp. Nick did the vast majority of the software development while I focused on the psychology.
The webapp was designed to provide the structure the first version was missing. Regular check-ins, explanations and tutorials of all the psychological interventions I’ve been using and reading about, and a single place to - the app - to know exactly what to do next.
It was structured, scientific, and isolating.
The feedback we got was overwhelmingly “this is helpful, but it’s not a cohort. I feel like I’m doing this alone.”
We’d focused so narrowly on the software, we lost sight of the fact that the most valuable support people can have as they go through big behaviour changes is the support of a community.
What we want to do for version 3 is give you the best of both worlds - the structure of version 2 with the community of version 1.
Now, this is a difficult thing to do. Because when we’re considering a digital declutter - reducing not just our smartphone use, but overall digital media consumption - providing yet another online community with a constant stream of discourse, can be entirely self-defeating. We need a structured approach that aligns with the goals of the digital declutter.
Essentially, what if the community space we create becomes a digital echo chamber that takes up just as much time from your life as doomscrolling?
Then we’d just be replacing one digital consumption habit with another.
That being said, the community aspect is incredibly powerful and valuable. The fact that you are going through this cohort with 99 other people, and that you can support one another, act as accountability buddies, share your successes and your learning opportunities, this can be incredibly powerful. It just has to be designed well.
So, all of February, we’ll be collecting feedback, building, and trying to get that design right.
Based on our initial feedback, here are some ideas I’m working on to bring structure and community together:
We’re considering a private Discord for people who go through the cohort together. We’re going to open up weekly discussions in that Discord, but we’re going to discourage consistent chatter. As mentioned earlier, we don’t want to replace doomscrolling with discord chatter but we do want community. We want it to be supportive without being addictive.
To address that balance, we’ll use the Discord primarily for regular structured discussion.
Kickoff Stream/Zoom Call (Day 1): We’ll meet as a cohort for an hour explaining how the 30 day digital declutter works, followed by an AMA to help orient you all for the next 30 days. I’ll introduce myself and you can introduce yourselves to the rest of the cohort - establishing the community together
Weekly Check-Ins: We tried to do this over Discord during the alpha, but it was sort of ad hoc, happened last second. Sarah (a consistently awesome member of the community) has been phenomenal at creating weekly prompts and facilitating discussion, but I didn’t give her much to work with. I think if we build this as an intentional secheduled touch point right at the start of the cohort, it’ll land a lot better and foster that community.
Final Day Wrap-Up Meeting: We can do another stream where we all get together and chat through what the cohort was like, what your plan is moving forward, how to create a plan to bring these changes forward into the rest of your life.
I really love the idea of accountability buddies but it’s not something I have the time to facilitate nor do we yet have the software to set it up for you.
So, we’ll create a channel for people to form accountability buddies or pods, but at the moment we don’t have the resources to ensure everyone finds a buddy or pod.
Still, during version 1, many people were able to find accountability buddies or pods that were extremely helpful, so, I’m hopeful that the community will manage it well themselves until we can come up with a more structured approach.
If you are interested in participating in the cohort that we hope to be launching in March, let us know what you would like to get out of it as well. If you leave comments in the Substack post, I’ll be happy to answer any questions that you might have. I will absolutely be reading them and responding.
I’m very eager to find out what the best way is for us to help you.
The more that you can share with me about what your experience is like, what you’re looking to get out of this, the more we can shape not just this next cohort, but every subsequent cohort. We’ll be working on improving this month after month, making it better and better for all of you fine folks!
—-
To those of you who did participate in this alpha cohort, I really appreciate you taking the time, putting in the effort, for all of your feedback. And congratulations on the work. I know how difficult it is to try to reshape habits that are this deeply ingrained. So well done. Thank you so much.
I hope that Nick and I and this community in general can help you continue to reshape your digital environments and your relationships with technology.
Cheers,
Nathan
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.