I needed a break from seeing every meal my friends ate. I needed a break from the mindless dribble that my friends spoke. Every thought was being published online. I needed a break from having the life I live and the life I let others see. It's no secret that we live in a world where it's more important to appear to have a great life than it is to actually live on. I started to feel anxious because I couldn't "keep up". I started to feel the ridiculousness of it all.
At some point, I've been questioned on whether or not I actually went to an event, or if I was home, or if I was sleeping, etc because I didn't take 500 pictures. If there wasn't an album filled with photos upon photos, then it simply "didn't happen".
At other points, I'd been told something super important by a friend or family member way after the fact, like they were in a hospital or fired or broke up with their significant other. I'd shockingly say, "oh my God, why didn't you tell me?" only to be met with the ever famous, "well I posted it on Facebook."
I have had a friend call, then text, then message, then post - only to accuse me of ignoring them, and have them hurt unintentionally by my lack of answering. In a world where anything and anyone you want is available in a second, the expectation is high in that if I didn't answer, I'd have people mad at me, regardless of how unreasonable. There simply isn't a thing such as "too busy" anymore. "it only takes 5 seconds to send a text", and you better forget using "I didn't have my phone" as an 'excuse' .
All of this makes me so anxious all the time. I feel like I'm never "turned off" from the world. I've made honest efforts to limit my phone use and social media use both during the work day and at night. In fact, there's this great app called "Offtime" that I highly recommend. You can set your phone on a timer to automatically disconnect yourself from certain apps, or to only allow yourself access to certain apps. I've set mine to disconnect at ten pm each night from all social media, my Web browser, and even calls and texts (though there are a few people whom I have given permissions to in the event of an emergency.)
I miss the days of a dial-up connection. Where you had to choose between calling or the Internet. I miss the days before cell phones. I miss when if someone wanted to get in touch with you, they'd have to wait until you got home. And if someone left a voice mail, they understood that you weren't home or were busy away from your phone, and didn't send you multiple messages after accusing you of ignoring them. I miss the days before everyone was so available and everything was so immediate.
We no longer take trips to the library, we simply download the book via a library app. Or order the book on amazon and it shows up in 2 days. We no longer have to have "street smarts" or ingenuity, because we have Google and YouTube at our fingertips.
It's great, don't get me wrong. I've been able to fix my own car, do my own plumbing, and "life hack" my way through quite a few problems I wouldn't have likely been able to do before. As a girl who has to do most things on her own, it can be a godsend. And considering almost no gas stations carry maps anymore, I don't know what I'd do without Google maps (especially in other states.)
But, generally speaking, we've lost our attention spans. We've lost our innovation. We no longer have to retain information, because we can just Google it. We no longer have to be creative, because we can find someone else who's already done it on YouTube. I'm not making this stuff up. Researchers have been studying for years how our brains have been changing in relation to technology.
If you have a moment, check out this one
. It outlines just about everything I've said up to this point.
So, here I am going to attempt to chronicle my upcoming days free of social media. I'm still keeping my phone, the Internet, texting, and even snap chat open. In 4 days, I'll be heading into the woods to go completely technology free for 2 nights and 3 days. Updates will come daily until then, in which case, I'll chronicle my days in a notebook and transfer my thoughts here upon my return to the world wide web.
Day 1
In my first 6 hours without social media, I had probably tried to open the Facebook app 20 times. Every time I unlocked my phone I clicked the little blue icon to open Facebook. At first, it was amusing. I even snickered to myself. But after about a dozen times, I started to feel shocked and even appalled. When did social media become a habit? When did it become as second nature as locking my door before I leave the house, or setting the alarm before I go to sleep? After so many attempts, I finally got frustrated with myself and deleted all my social media apps off my phone. It simply wasn't enough signing out or deactivating the accounts. I needed to physically delete them.
Day 2
I kept my data off today as well. I decided unless I need to, I'm leaving the Internet alone until I get home to my wifi. Almost the same premise of "home phones" but for the Internet.
Today I'm also no longer habitually trying to access the icons, mostly due to the fact that they're gone. But, I do notice I don't miss them. I'm not trying to find them or mindlessly going to the page they were on. I'm much more conscious of their absence. Though, I have to use Facebook for some things at work. This morning, I found myself mindlessly scrolling and commenting using my "fake" account for about 5 minutes. It took a couple minutes for me to realize, fake account or not, I was falling into old habits. I turned off all notifications. Even though I HAVE to use Facebook for some purposes at work, I'm making an effort to not even look at the page. And I'm keeping the page closed and opening it each time I need to use it, which is around 2 or so times an hour. It is a bit of a pain to keep opening and closing the Web pages, but it's helping, so I'd rather waste a few seconds and be a bit annoyed than have it continuously open. Thus far, I've had two Facebook friends notice my absence and ask why I took the page down. Other than that, either no one noticed or no one cares enough to ask. I feel much less tied to my phone, and I feel much more relieved. On my lunch, instead of texting and Facebooking and random interweb things, I continued reading Nick Offerman's book, which is amazing. So far, disconnecting myself has proven very beneficial overall.
Day 3 and 4
I had a few other quick moments where I needed to retrieve something from my facebook and therefore activated it momentarily. I never noticed how much I use it like a storage bank. Photos, phone numbers, dates of events and birthdays. It's become the center of my life, honestly.
Then, I went into the woods...
I first arrived in the woods around 2pm. I didn't have much time to be on my phone, but, it wasn't completely disabled until 7pm that night. It stayed off most of the next day, minus a small moment where I wanted to see the time, and my Dad had messaged and called me. He was worried, so to save his own sanity, I called him back. I wish I hadn't because the point was to be unreachable, but- he had been very open about how worried he was about me camping in the woods for weeks. I couldn't let him continue to worry. After that, my phone did not come back on until I was completely home AND showered the next day, which was around 3pm. So, about 44 hours, give or take.
I noticed I didn't miss it. Not at all. I didn't miss being connected. I didn't care who was posting what photo at who knows where. I didn't mind the silence or the absenteeism. Which made me realize, I've been overwhelmed for months with communication. Every day, all day, I've been way too available. The reason I slept so good? My phone wasn't buzzing, nor was there a part of me that feared the 'phantom ring'. I knew it wouldn't go off, so I didn't think about it. When I truly got into the core of what caused me to be so stressed and anxiety filled over it, I had a break down (though Bree likes to call it a break through.) I realized so much of my inner soul had been filled with guilt and fear. I HATED letting people down, to the point where I was letting myself down. I no longer knew how to say 'no, I've had enough'. While half of that likely comes from fear of previous things, another half of it comes from guilt. That's when I realized, I may not know how to fix it, but it's not this. Not this. It's not like I hadn't said no, like when a friend asked me to take her cat. I said no over and over again. It wasn't that I didn't want to, it's that I couldn't. I don't have the means nor space for him. I said no. Over and over again. And yet, guess where he is right now? There's a magic trick to turning my 'nos' into 'yeses'. Guilt.
What I decided, is that I have to remind myself when it comes to saying 'no' to people I love, is exactly how it was with the cat. It's not that I don't want to, it's that I can't. I can't.
I can't feel responsible for the people I care about making mistakes. I can't feel responsible for fixing their mistakes when no one has ever fixed mine. I am the only one responsible for myself, and I know that, so I take full responsibility for everything in my life. Including this. Including letting the wrong people into my life and manipulate me into draining myself. I am sorry, to myself for giving people the impression that I was worth that, I am worth much more. I forgive, to myself for making that mistake. And I will do better, for myself because only I can change my life.
Some will understand. Others won't. And the ones that don't understand, well, they're just weeding themselves out and proving to me they are part of the problem I am trying to solve.
And with this, I hope I can get over the anxiety I feel over technology. Right now, it feels like every buzz, every flickering light, every twinkle sounding off is a friend in need. And I just can't. I have nothing left to give.
With this realization, I also made a promise to myself to be more mindful of technology and limit it daily. I hate that instead of asking someone if they want to see your vacation and showing them slides when they gleefully (or begrudgingly) agree, it's just literally shoved into our faces. I hate that everyone 'checks in' where they are, at all times, leaving no mystery. That selfies are being taken daily (did you really change that much since yesterday?). That every single moment of our life is captured and shared. There's no privacy whatsoever anymore. There's no solidarity. There's barely even human interaction anymore.
So, I went to the library and checked out a book that wasn't on an app OR bought off Amazon. I also went inside to pay for gas, even though I could've easily swiped my card at the pump. I went and talked to my neighbors on Monday for a good hour.
The most prominent moment I can recall of purposefully leaving technology behind is when I was at the grocery store today. I may be overestimating the exact number here, but it's not by much- half of the people in the store were on their phones. Either looking down on them, texting, scrolling, etc. Or speaking to them. In a room full of strangers, here they are having full conversations with loved ones and business associates. And what I found intriguing about it, is that for the first time I noticed there was no clear distinction between them. Everyone from a 20-something-year-old female to an older plump man in a suit to a squirrelly white-haired woman on a rascal. And even more noticeable, the people who weren't on their phones, seemed just as completely detached from the swarm of humans surrounding them. I thought, "If I asked that man on the other end of the aisle what the woman who just walked by him looked like, he couldn't tell me a single thing about her. Not about her hair, or her clothes, or even her height and weight." So, I made an effort to start 'people watching', and really try to gather in everyone around me. What they were wearing, what their lives might be like, what they were buying and what that meant they were making for dinner. Who were they really? Did they have to cook all 8 of those hamburgers, or were they only making two tonight for themselves? We live in a society, in case you forgot. Full of real, living, breathing, people. Then, even though I was done with my shopping, I decided I'd do a walk around the store, in every aisle, to just smile. I decided to just smile at every single person who actually looked at me in the face. I didn't count how many it was, maybe a dozen. Which, the store was quite busy, so that number seems very small. I mean, there were more than a dozen people in the line I was in and the lines on either side of me, plus the other lines in the store and everyone who was shopping that I just walked by.
Then, I went to a second grocery store, where I decided to do that thing people used to do and make casual conversation. Yes, speak to a stranger, in person, without a phone between us. Dave came in today to buy tomatoes, though they were out of the ones he wanted. While he was here, however, he thought he would pick up him and his wife's favorite cereals for the morning. Dave also hasn't yet bought a Mega Millions ticket (it's up like record high or something, not too sure), but he thinks he will. Dave complimented me on my written grocery list, to which he said, "I don't see many people doing that anymore. Especially at your age." We talked about his holiday, to which Rosa, my cashier, started to talk about hers as well. I realized while talking to Dave (which wouldn't have happened had I not said to myself, "GO TALK TO A HUMAN TODAY" ) that Rosa has been my cashier probably 50 times in the past year, and this was the first conversation we've ever had that went past the pleasantries of, 'Hi, how are you? Nice weather today. No, not too busy today." I got to know a little about her family and the cookout that they had, and the fireworks they watched, and that she doesn't drink much anymore but when she was younger, Boy! Could she!
I've stopped 'binge-watching' TV for hours at a time, and I've really begun to enjoy reading again. Its only been a short while, ten days or something since my initial 'sign off'. But it feels different. Or, maybe I feel different. Either way, I'm happy where I'm headed.
:)
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