Reboot-iful: Five 2024 Resolutions For A Digital Reboot

Yes, I admit it: when it comes to resolutions, I'm a disaster. My repeated failed attempts to begin the new year with a diet every year are legendary, but for this year, I've made a few resolutions that I'm really serious about and that I also feel good about achieving.

In this post, I will focus on resolutions that are tech-related, such as using technology to help me achieve them. Let's get straight to it. After all, the first of the 366 days of the year have already passed and we don't want to waste any more time, do we?

Table of Contents:

• Better sustainability
• Less social media
• Improved  fitness thanks to health data tracking
• A more orderly digital life
• Better AI integration in the workflow

Better sustainability

Sustainability has been on my mind for some time now. Not discarding leftovers, not returning goods unnecessarily, avoiding plastic, that kind of thing. There are also several ways to live more sustainably when it comes to consumer electronics. Incidentally, I find it absurd how many people immediately cringe when you mention the topic of sustainability. It's like suggesting they should all go back to living in caves.

However, sustainability doesn't just mean having limited choices. It can also translate to saving money. This is especially true when it comes to energy. In my new apartment, we will install smart sockets everywhere. Not only do they make our lives easier by automating appliances, they also help us to locate the power guzzlers at home and save electricity (and therefore money).

The right type of lighting, such as smart lighting from Philips Hue, also offers me both savings potential and greater convenience thanks to energy-efficient LEDs, and the situation is similar with smart thermostats. As you can see, we are dealing with win-win-win situations here:

• Better sustainability through energy savings
• More convenience through automation
• Saves money

Personally, I also hope to buy a new smartphone after years of clinging on to the Google Pixel 6 Pro (review) and especially the Huawei P30 Pro (review). In addition to a beautiful display and at least satisfactory SoC performance, the main criteria for my purchase at the time™ were a very good camera. In 2024, the smartphone's sustainability is now part of my purchase equation.

This is primarily due to the software support offered. The Google Pixel 8 (review) offers us seven years of updates, with the Fairphone 5 (review) offering up to eight years. Samsung smartphones also promise five years of updates. And yes, I want a great camera again, which is why the Fairphone is not for me. However, I'm absolutely willing to live through the rest of the decade with this smartphone after buying it and not buy the next model until 2030 arrives. I will also look at how much recycled materials are used, how transparent the supply chain is, etc.

These are my personal sustainability goals, and the list is not exhaustive. Feel free to let me know in the comments where you see additional effort can be made: Are you getting an e-car, a wall box, or a balcony power station? Feel free to tell us.

Less social media

I began with this point last year. I significantly reduced my activity on Facebook and deleted my account on X/Twitter. This helped me with my social hygiene because it made no sense for me to spend ages arguing with strangers who have no interest in exchanging viewpoints in the first place anyway.

There are even more reasons to curb your social media activities. Instagram and its algorithms have been proven to make young people, in particular, feel worse about themselves. Sure, you're constantly seeing every one of your friends supposedly enjoying themselves at a great party, going on a sensational vacation, or experiencing something positive while you laze around and doom-scrolling on the couch. Yes, somehow everyone else on Instagram and TikTok is so beautiful, fit, and pleased with their bodies.

We also tend to dive deeper and deeper into our own bubble. This is where it's helpful to rely less on the social media app algorithms and to approach topics from a more objective perspective. For instance, I prefer to read news in my self-configured feed reader instead of letting my contacts feed me the news in my bubble that I basically already know reflects my opinion.

Last but not least, social media is not entirely a waste of time. Algorithms ensure that every new TikTok will activate a Pavlovian response in you to look at it. This keeps you scrolling non-stop, because the next clip could be sensationally entertaining. This is how we end up scrolling through feeds for up to two hours without leaving you with any proper explanation on where the time went and what type of value has been added to your life after that. 

What am I going to do? I'm not going to use X and I'm going to use Facebook a lot less. I also want to use other services like Bluesky and Threads in a very controlled manner. At the moment, this works pretty well for me, but if you don't dare to take the plunge, you can also use tools that limit your screen time each day. In his 2022 article, Rubens shared how you can control your app usage on both Android and iPhone.

Don't forget that it's not just the active use of these apps that can be a problem, but also the frequency with which notifications pop up on your phone, robbing you of concentration, focus, and attention on what's important. In any case, I'm going to take a much more relaxed approach to all of this this year—also because I've recently realized that it's good for me.

Improved fitness thanks to health data tracking

Argh, now we're back to this topic. I've already written that health and fitness is an ongoing issue for me. I'm currently doing quite well, which is largely due to technology supporting me. Of course, a fitness tracker helps, but your smartphones also provide enough input via an app to keep an eye on your health. Fitness features are becoming more and more comprehensive and far-reaching and can actually save lives in certain situations. Read our Withings ScanWatch 2 review to get an idea of how comprehensive the tracking can be.

My resolutions for 2024 are basically the same as those that worked for me in 2023: I'm still using the Samsung Health app for my fitness goals, and I'm also using the paid version of the Yazio app, which breaks down exactly what I eat. It doesn't just count calories, but also tells me what fiber and how many carbohydrates I'm snacking on, cholesterol, trans fats, etc. Click on the following links to read our introduction to both apps alongside others:

• The best pedometer apps for Android and iOS
• The best calorie counter apps for Android and iOS

A more orderly digital life

Let's move on to another classic that is relevant every year. It's about digital spring cleaning your smartphone, but do not just stop there. In 2023, our hardware, be it notebooks, smartphones, or tablets, will once again be filled with files, photos, videos, documents, and more.

That's why it's time for another major clean-up, especially on smartphones. There are different ways to do this. For instance, uninstall all apps on your smartphone that you haven't touched in forever, and you know the situation will not change in the future. If these come with paid subscriptions, getting rid of them will not only free up space on your device but also reduce your monthly expenditure. We also recommend the Aboalarm app, which can remind you of the renewal notices for your app subscriptions.

Tidiness also means attending to the necessary updates. Is the operating system still up to date and are your apps running on the latest versions? This also applies to other devices such as your smart TV, router, or smart home bridge, just to name just a few. You can find out how to tidy your photos, remove unnecessary contacts, and check your app permissions in our spring cleaning post linked above. In any case, I'm going to do it again this year and feel as light as a feather for three days afterward at the very least.

At best, this positive resolution will lead to more money in your pocket, more space on your devices, less clutter, of course, and also better security. That's a good enough argument, isn't it?

Better AI integration in the workflow

AI has been the elephant in the room since the hype surrounding ChatGPT appeared at the end of 2022, regardless of the topic being discussed. As someone who writes and publishes stories for a living, I naturally can't avoid the topic of artificial intelligence either. Don't worry, when I say that I have set myself the goal of integrating AI better in my workflow, I'm not talking about machine-generated texts that still have my name as the author.

Yes, I'm willing to dig in my heels more this year. Recurring processes can perhaps be completed more quickly for me, and AI can also summarize longer texts for me quickly during research. For me, this means that I could potentially save a lot of time on dull and unspectacular processes at work and invest the time saved in further research or write longer articles in a more detailed manner. At best, that would be a win-win situation for you, for me, and not least, for my employer. "ChatGPT, please write me a nice article about New Year's resolutions. Under 2,000 words would be cool, thanks!"

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So friends, these are my resolutions for 2024. Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? But hey, I'm highly motivated. How about you? Think about how you use technology or consumer electronics: Have you identified things that you would like to do differently in 2024? Let me know in the comments, I look forward to reading them!