The best part of the last week for me has been spent unplugged from the online world. This is often the case when I’m travelling, as I am presently. Sometimes, I enforce the breaks intentionally at home as well.
This time spent away is always refreshing. I feel no guilt about not checking into social media on a daily basis or scanning favourite blogs for updates. There are less distractions in my day so I can concentrate on what, and who, is in front of me instead.
Interestingly, when I come back online, I also never seem to have missed much.
Strange Times, Stranger Behaviour
We live in strange times. We can be contacted 24/7. Smartphones that never leave our side, tablets, laptops etc etc. The screens in our lives are multiplying. More and more of our time is spent plugged in – literally.
While the convenience of being able to hop online to shop, or research, or open an email cannot be denied, all this time online can also be a curse.
We can become addicted to checking in — the ping of incoming alerts.
Another endorphin hit for each new message received.
We lunch with a friend but obsessively check our phones for Instagram updates of a celebrity we’ll never meet.
We take snaps of food or coffee served to us, so we can check in and share (brag) online how much we’re living the life, without really stopping to truly taste and enjoy the moment.
We walk to work with our heads buried in a screen, clock in to spend our day with our head buried in a screen, then come home to bury our head in a screen!
Is this really the measure of a life well lived?
We need to prioritize living over watching our screens obsessively.
We need to harness the wonderful power of the technology at or fingertips without letting it run riot.
We need to realise that we control how we interact with technology, not the other way around.
Spend a little time unplugged from the online world so you can reconnect with the world right here.