Digital Overload, How Technology Affects Time, Instant Gratification, Multitasking And Burnout, Self Help Podcast

🚨 Digital Rush – Reclaiming Your Time From Technology

In this honest and deeply relatable episode, Gina Margaret Tiger explores how technology has hijacked our time, rewired our brains, and warped our relationship with patience, presence, and productivity. From dopamine-driven distractions to the illusion of multitasking, Gina breaks down the digital time trap and how to escape it.

🧠 Episode Breakdown:

00:00 – Welcome to Chapter 7: Time in the Digital Age

00:32 – How Life Felt Before Phones and Notifications

01:30 – Why Time Feels Like It’s Flying

02:00 – Instant Gratification Culture

02:40 – Faster Communication, Faster Burnout

03:30 – Multitasking and The Illusion of Efficiency

04:50 – Distraction, Notifications, and Mental Splits

06:00 – Reclaiming Time With Boundaries and Tech Breaks

07:00 – Screen Time, Scheduling, and Prioritizing Real Life

08:00 – Detoxing From Devices (Even If It’s Hard)

09:00 – Wrap-Up and Invitation to Reflect

🔑 Key Insight:

“You’re not running out of time — you’re just not present in it.”

🧭 Reclaim Time With These Steps:

Turn on app limits or screen time locks

Block schedule your day (focus x rest)

Create tech-free zones (bedroom, meals, prayer space)

Practice 1-task focus instead of multitasking

Digital detox once a week (2–4 hrs offline)

📓 Journal Prompt:

How is technology currently shaping the way I experience time — and what one habit can I shift today?

🧠 Affirmation:

I Reclaim My Time, I Slow Down With Intention, I Choose Presence Over Pressure

📢 Support The Show:

If this episode helped you pause and reflect, rate it 5 stars, follow the Self Help Show, and share it with someone caught in the digital hustle.

digital overload, technology and time, instant gratification, multitasking burnout, how to reclaim time, mindfulness with tech, self help podcast

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello, welcome to a thousand voices podcast.

(00:06):
This is a self help show.
My name is Gina and I'm your host.
I talk about all things self and in chapter seven, I'm talking about time and I'm talking
about all things time.
Okay.
Today's topic is how technology shapes our perception of time, time in the digital age.

(00:32):
Guys.
Okay.
So I'm a millennial, right?
And when I was going to primary school, even high school, we didn't have phones, believe
it or not.
And those days a year was a year.
A year was, if a year starts, you would never see the ending of that year.

(00:56):
It was so long.
A year felt like a decade.
I promise you if you're starting a term, but the semi finished that term, you like old.
So that was time back then.
And I feel like the technology we are using now has kind of changed our perception of

(01:21):
time.
And have you like now, right?
Do you ever feel like time flies?
Maybe when you just like, maybe on your phone, you like watching something and all of a sudden
five hours gone.
Oh, I don't know.
It's like today, just yesterday, it was Monday last week and today it's already another Monday.

(01:49):
How?
Like where did that other week go to?
If you get what I mean, right?
So I think because we having a lot of technology, right?
We getting a lot of instant gratification.
And what I mean by this is technology gives us immediate access to things.
It gives us immediate access to services.

(02:13):
It gives us so much in such a short space of time that the term patient sometimes doesn't
even exist in other instances because it's like right now.
It's like now, now, now, now, now, now.

(02:35):
So that's one thing.
And the second thing is the speed of our communication has improved.
So as I was telling you, I am a millennial when we used to go to school back then, we
didn't have phones.
We didn't have SMSes.
So we would write letters.
So now because we have instant messaging, we have social media that has accelerated our

(03:00):
communication causing us to perceive time as if it's moving faster due to that constant
engagement and constant communication.
Do you agree with me?
I think you do.
Then another thing is time has kind of made us multitask.
So we kind of do so many things in such a short space of time, creating that illusion

(03:28):
of efficiency while actually fragmenting our focus and distorting our sense of time.
Do you get that?
Do you get that?
Like our illusion of efficiency, right?
Because of technology, we can multitask.
So we have that illusion that, you know, we are efficient and our focus is fragmented.

(03:56):
So because of that, we do so many things in an hour now that would have taken three weeks
to be done.
Yeah.
So that's that.
Then connectivity.

(04:17):
I cannot leave that one out.
Connectivity, how we are constantly just, I did mention communication.
Yeah.
Connectivity is, how can I explain this?
I lost my train of thoughts.
Just give me one second.

(04:40):
I lost my train of thought.
Oh my gosh.
What did I want to say?
What did I want to say?
This was going on so well.
Forgive me, guys.

(05:02):
Connectivity between like, okay, let me just leave that one.
Let me talk about distractions.
So with distractions happening, we have your notifications, maybe you're working on your
laptop, your phone is ringing, you have another email coming up, you have the doorbell ringing,
you know, you're kind of doing all sorts of things at the exact same time and you are

(05:26):
fully engaged within that present moment.
By the time you're out of that present moment, then it's already like six hours gone.
You're like, what?
Time flies.
So for example, if you start your day, you go into one meeting, then you go to the next
meeting and then you go to the next meeting.
In that same breath, you are replying to emails, you're making phone calls, you're organizing

(05:50):
things.
At the end of the day, you've covered stuff that you could have done in like two weeks
time in just that same day and not forgetting how you were in a different place, like one
moment after the other, you know, so I just think, I don't know if we are becoming super

(06:12):
humans, but I just feel like we are doing so much that it almost feels like time is,
it almost feels like time is flying or time is reduced, but I think time is still the
same.
It's just how rapidly technology contributes to even like the cultural shift, you know,

(06:40):
and how we now value and perceive time.
Yeah.
So another thing I wanted to talk about is how do you kind of regain control?
Because I feel like this is okay, as I was mentioning.
Yes, you could, you could end up getting burned out and you know, you're doing so much and

(07:02):
time is flying.
Yes, you're being efficient, but then at what cost, right?
How do you kind of regain control and take back like that control of your time?
So you don't have to do everything as rushed.
I need to say this to myself directly because the way I be sprinting sometimes, it's crazy.
So having clear boundaries and setting time for specific things.

(07:25):
So making sure that you get everything done.
Then another thing that I recently started doing is having screen time on my phone.
It kind of helps me stay in the present moment.
So if I have work that I need to get done, I'm not going to be distracted by like at
the notifications.

(07:45):
I'll just get one task done, then move on to the next one.
Then another thing we have to do is to prioritize people's full use of our time.
Is it aligned to our goals or are we just like spinning it off?
Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.
Then one thing that I wish like I could make for myself is creating like a tech free zone

(08:10):
where you have your office, then you can leave your devices in that room.
And then when you go in the lounge or when you go sleep, you are away from all of those
devices.
This is something that I would love to try for myself.
Then another thing is even just a digital detox.

(08:31):
Just going away and just being offline.
But the thing is you can't really do that because I feel like we're all just addicted.
Like you having that formal, you know, like, oh, what if something happens and then I don't
even know what's going to happen?
All this, all that.
But then at the same time, I just feel like, yeah, I don't know.

(08:52):
I really don't know, guys.
We are together on this one and you have to help me.
And as much as I'm helping you, we have to help one another.
It's quite interesting how everything falls into place.
But yeah, at least we kind of know how technology is shaping our time and how we need to manage
our time effectively.

(09:12):
So thank you so much for listening.
I look forward to the next topic, which is the art of being present, enjoying the time
in the moment.
And yeah, if you know somebody that needs to listen to this, feel free to share.
Ask them to have a listen and leave a five star rating.

(09:34):
Thank you so much.
Thank you to my listeners in life.
I want to give special thanks to all the books that I've read.
I usually just mention them, but yeah, I'll kind of do that maybe at the end of the chapter,
just to give you like a whole list of everyone.