Detoxing…digitally
Have you ever heard of a digital detox? Or digital minimalism? I hadn’t until a few days ago. This was surprising because I am pretty entrenched with personal development and have spent a lot of time on YouTube and listening to podcasts about ways to improve my life. I’ve always heard about and even practiced things like stepping away from social media for a while, but I never really heard it in the context that I did recently.
Author Cal Newport wrote a book called Digital Minimalism where he discusses the way our culture has become dependent upon digital products and services, like social media, for entertainment and productivity. He discusses the lost sense of being bored and having to discover what you actually enjoy spending your time doing. I found this to be incredibly profound as I have been finding myself realizing in recent years that I don’t know how to be bored anymore.
I am what is considered an elder millennial. Social media did not become popular until I was in college. In high school, we chatted on AIM and Yahoo Chat, but we didn’t have MySpace and Facebook until I entered into college. My family had a family computer until I entered high school and got my own PC in my room. I didn’t have a cell phone until I was 16 and even then, texting regularly was not a thing we did. When I was in middle and elementary school, we were still talking on our parent’s landline phones. I was an only child and when I wasn’t spending time with my friends, I was alone in my room finding ways to entertain myself. I remember watching TV, but also remember spending a lot of time with hobbies and listening to music. I remember being bored at times and finding ways to pass the time.
These days, I often find myself longing for those days. Back when things were simpler and I wasn’t connected to every single person I have ever known. Social media has become so ubiquitous in our society, many of us operate on autopilot to scroll through everyone else’s experiences rather than spending time within our own minds and figuring out what we really enjoy doing.
This is what Cal Newport is getting at in his book Digital Minimalism. He suggests doing a digital detox where you remove social media from your life for at least 30 days and spend more time discovering what you really enjoy doing. I have been practicing this for less than a week and have found myself writing more than I ever have before. Here I am drafting blog posts, tidying my house, having deep conversations with my husband, and reading books. I am not spending hours scrolling Instagram and Reddit with no purpose or anything to show for it afterward. I have to say, I am thoroughly enjoying this experiment and challenge. I’m interested to see how I feel later down the road. I will check back in and update you! Until then, I am off to fold laundry and write in my journal some more.
Talk to you soon -
