Digital Detox
How often do you reach for your phone without thinking? I think most of us vastly underestimate the time we spend on our various devices on any given day. I also think that we have become way too dependent on our devices, for various reasons, and not all of them necessarily bad. We use them to look up information and challenge ourselves, to learn new things. But we also use them to catch up on gossip and waste time going down rabbit holes that have nothing to do with our lives. And sometimes, we use those devices to showcase the worst aspects of ourselves, getting drawn into pointless arguments with anonymous voices online.
A digital detox is the very basic idea of going through your day the old-fashioned way, without any devices. It’s an intentional stepping back from the online world to reconnect with yourself and those around you in real life. It’s about doing things other than being on your computer, playing online games, watching things or playing on your phone. It’s a complete step away from electronics, in its most drastic form. In a world that is getting increasingly disconnected through the overabundance of connection, it’s important to step away and realize that your life is your own and it doesn’t belong to the hundreds or thousands of people you interact with online, or that try to interact with you. You don’t owe strangers answers. You owe yourself to live your life in a way that makes you happy.
When the internet became a thing, and connecting with other like-minded people was possible, it was beautiful. It felt great to be seen, to make connections. I was one of those people and still have my best friend that I got to know that way (we also know each other in real life now too). It was a beautiful time to be online. This is no longer true. Just as good was amplified at first, now what we have are echo chambers of fanatics (on various topics) and everything is drastic and dramatic. Whatever good there is left, it’s getting harder and harder to find, and searching can be exhausting.
The cost of constant connection can include mental fatigue, anxiety, depression and overstimulation. It can affect your sleep, focus, creativity and even your relationships with the people in your life. A digital detox can begin to counteract these feelings. It can lead to a clearer mind, better rest, deeper conversations, more creativity, more time to do what you actually love to do. It can highlight what really matters to you. In the end, your life is lived in the real world, not online. Until you realize this, you will always feel a bit stuck, a bit lost, because the online world can only ever cater to one aspect of you. The real world can embrace all of you.
Stepping away from your digital life can seem overwhelming so start small if that seems easier. Unplug completely for a block of time in a single day. Maybe even just an hour to start with. Build up to a day, to a weekend. If you are able, do an entire week that is unplugged. Turn off all social media notifications and any others that are non-essential. I would qualify non-essential as anything that isn’t human. Start adding this into your routine and keep track of it by writing down how you are feeling each day. At first, it will suck. We no longer know how to be alone with ourselves. But start filling your time with real-world things, like taking walks or reading books or painting, and then start noticing how you start becoming more like yourself again. Realize that there are so many things and people around you that can make you happy and how much richer those connections are. It’s not about perfection or removing the online world entirely. It’s about creating breathing room for yourself so that you can reconnect with all aspects of who you are, so that you can focus on things in your real life and realize that you are loved and seen and that the amount of likes you get on a post from strangers is completely irrelevant to your day-to-day life.
Do not give away your autonomy to the digital world. Think, what could you discover about yourself in the quiet solitude of living your life in the tangible world.
Give it a shot, decide on a time frame and go with even a small digital detox. Give it time, especially if you are only doing specific blocks per day. Allow yourself time to be uncomfortable because that is where real growth happens.
When was the last time you were truly offline?
