Hey, why wouldn’t you keep your phone aside even while having dinner?

^{-Almost everyone, I have dinner with}

I am sure this rings a bell for most of us. The screen zombies we are turning into, it is getting harder each day, to adhere to your personal digital wellbeing norms. Constantly glued to news or social media (or whatever your nicotine is), we all have to agree that we have stopped living in the moment.

Handset manufacturers across the world are trying to help its users to overcome this menace, or at least, strike a balance. One such attempt was made by Oneplus with the launch of Oneplus 7 Pro. Zen Mode, is a digital well being tool that can enables you to disconnect with a no return option. Let’s explore it step by step:

What is Zen?

Even before jumping into Zen mode, lets understand what is Zen? I’ll make it super easy for you. Imagine yourself in a spa. Aroma of essentials oil (say lemongrass) is pleasing your senses. There is this ambient instrumental music working on some other senses. And of course you are feeling super relieved, stress free and relaxed. Yup, that’s what Zen is. It is a state of peace and mindfulness.

Zen Mode and its features:

Zen mode is a feature of devices running on oxygen 9 and above. Some amazing features of this mode are as follows:

• Once the Zen mode is enabled, you cannot cancel it.
• All incoming notifications are muted during this time.
• You can still receive phone calls and make emergency calls only.
• All apps are locked during this period except for the camera (I wonder why camera is left out).

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You can enable the Zen mode from notification panel. Then pick a duration ranging from 1 minute to 120 minutes. Phone will give you a disclaimer before proceeding, highlighting above features, and voila! Time to disconnect. Once enabled, there is nothing at all you can do with your phone. I tried turning it off and back on in the Zen mode but that doesn’t help either. It is a strict enforcement of discipline.

1. Group Zen Mode:

You and your friends/spouse can enable group Zen Mode so that you can disconnect together. Pretty handy right? All you need to do is:

• Toggle to the group mode as shown below.
• You may create a room or join a room created by your partner.
• Enter the 6 digit auto generated “Room Code” available with the creator of the room, if you are the joinee.

And boom! Back to real life.

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2. ZEN MODE Profile:

You can track your history in this section. There are some key metrics like

• Total “Zen Time”
• Number of times you have done this.
• Number of total days you have done this.
• There are certain medals you can earn along your journey to keep you motivated.

3. ZEN MODE Settings:

In this section:

• You can set a daily reminder for enabling this mode at a set time.
• You can change the content it shows on your screen while this mode is enabled.
• Alternatively you can choose to remind you to use this mode when you have used phone constantly for a certain period of time.

Our Dinner Time:

As mentioned above, my nicotine is news, moneycontrol app and 9gag. If given a chance, I can be hooked to these apps the entire day. One fine day, while I was having dinner with my wife, she said, “You work so hard to put food on the table, and when it is there, you ignore it.” Those words brought up yet another use case of Zen Mode. Since that very day, I enable the this mode for 20 minutes during every meal. No phones, no TV. Just me, food and conversations of our day so far.

One such incident happened yesterday where my wife couldn’t stop checking out the number of likes on the photo she had just uploaded, while we were eating in a restaurant. I politely asked for her phone and enabled the Zen Mode. End of the problem.

Conclusion:

I couldn’t emphasize more on the fact that we need to disconnect from our phones regularly. This is a quick way of starting that journey. After all, technology is as good as you use it.

Until Next Time..