Every year I do a digital detox. Actually, last year’s was exactly the same date according to my Facebook.
I’ve done it for 3 years in a row and it’s the best thing I do – no laptop, phones, or internet. Usually, I do it for a week + for the last few months, I’d felt I was overdue one but couldn’t because of work commitments. I needed my email + I didn’t want to do a digital detox except for my emails cause they cause me the most stress. I wanted to do it on holiday but that didn’t happen because of other work commitments. So I decided I would do one next weekend. I’m going to bristol so am going to turn my phone off from Friday evening to Sunday evening.
But as you’ve been seeing from my exacerbated Instagram stories, my social media started to affect my mental health and I promised myself I would never let that happen. For the last 2 weeks, I’ve been holding on for next weekend but I couldn’t wait any longer + 24 hours ago, spur of the moment, I decided to do it. I usually do it on a week where I am travelling or busy and have company but this time it was harder cause it was just me and my own company.
I am not telling you all of this as a warning that I was missing cause the likelihood is you didn’t notice/care. I am telling you this to encourage you to do one too! It was only 24 hours but it makes the world of difference. 24 hours where someone is asking something of you whether it’s emails or social media. 24 hours to do things for yourself, not for the photographic evidence. 24 hours of not comparing yourself to strangers online.
I got urges to turn it back on but every urge reminded me how addicted we all are to these devices and I never want to be reliant on that. From now on, I’m going to try to do 24 hours every week or if not, a couple hours with my phone off everyday.
I’m going to play around with it.
To be honest, I wanted to keep it off until Monday but I’m going on a night out tonight + my housemate is yelling at me that I’m being unsafe to go out in London at night without my phone so I turned it on because the world is still sexist + women fearing for their safety is the norm ?
But more importantly I feel rejuvenated and back to me!