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112 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 OP 19 May \ parent \ on: Follow up on Digital Detox Sunday alter_native
Yeah, when I first started digital detoxes I completely put away both my phone and laptop for the day.
Then I felt resentful that tools like using my phone to call people was not an option. And these are, of course, tools I used regularly BEFORE the internet made the digital environment "dirty" (in other words, touching anything digital meant you were exposed to crazy stimulation).
So right now I draw the line at:
- using the phone to make calls
- texting (it's not an addictive thing for me, and nowadays it's hard to communicate day-to-day without texting)
- using my laptop locally, not online - mostly just writing, reading. I don't have any video games on it.
I can understand the desire to be completely without stimulation. Now, when sunbathing, I've started to NOT bring a book, or listen to a podcast. I tried it just as an experiment, but now I'm hooked - it's cool to just be able to let your mind drift. I start focusing on clouds, birds, whatever noises I hear in the neighborhood. And I also think about my projects, and often get good ideas on them.
I think a lot about how when I used to have a really shitty car and the radio stopped working, and so I just drove around in silence whenever I went anywhere, and on my commute; and how that default, of having my mind untethered, with a task that absorbed just a bit of ambient attention, was important to my general mental ecology.
People feel like not doing all the modern shit is doing nothing. But the absence of all this is definitely something, like a nutrient you need but whose absence takes a while to show up, and then it shows up in a weird way that you can't attribute to the thing you're missing.
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