30 Day Media Detox, Week 1
For a while, I was questioning whether I even wanted to write this post. An addiction is not a joke. The battle is serious and real. At this point, I'm not sure whether I can trust myself to go near a computer, not to mention the internet.
I started this detox last week, on Tuesday evening, Wednesday being the first full detox day. Not that this is super important. Just wanted to mark to beginning somehow.
For the first three or four days, I failed over and over again. I attempted to restrict my internet, phone and social media usage, but couldn't. The phone would persistently find its way into my hands. And when I had managed to put the phone away, suddenly my laptop was open and I continued the use there.
But I didn't give up. I congratulated myself for trying my best and validated the struggle. Then came the fourth day, and I finally found the strength to put everything away and not pick it back up for the next three days (which is where I am now).
And what three days it has been, ladies and gentlemen and people of other genders! Oh my god. It was like releasing a breath that I didn't realize I'd been holding.
I finally managed to put everything away on that fourth day mainly because my partner was having time off from work. I have learned that battling the addiction alone is very difficult for me, but when I have someone to spend time with, suddenly it becomes doable. Even when he went to work yesterday, I still managed to keep myself off the phone and laptop for the entire day. It really helps if you have something to do, though.
Even when I was off media, I wasn't completely off media. As I have previously stated, I can still use online banking, the bus card and maps, for example. But I also did something that wasn't strictly necessary. I listened to music on Spotify.
Now, we have considered cancelling our Spotify subscription. I have lost my interest and passion for music, and I partially blame Spotify. Like we can't concentrate on movies anymore, because there's always another movie to watch if the current one is boring, same thing can happen with music.
I still remember when we had to buy CDs (and when I was a child, vinyls). If you didn't have it on a CD (and you didn't hear it on the radio), you didn't hear the music. Period. It was a simpler time.
I really love how easily Spotify gives access to so much music. You can listen to almost anything. Everything is right there, at the click of a mouse or tap of your finger. And yet...
When we had CDs, I picked out quite carefully which CDs to buy (even if some of those pirate copies were cheap). I valued them more. I listened to them over and over again. The songs became very familiar, very intimate. I wrote out the lyrics and made art inspired by the songs. I shared the songs with friends. I can still remember how important, how precious some of those songs were, how they marked important events in my life.
After access to music became super easy, everything changed. Now it's like Tinder but with songs. There's always more to listen to so why would you waste the time and effort to get to know a song, an album or an artist intimately?
I feel the same way about photographs. After photos became digital and easy to take, it's like there are no photos anymore. Back in the day when resources were limited, I valued the little that I had. I had to think and carefully pick the perfect moment to take a photo. They were always so exciting to develop and look at for the first time! Then they would be framed or put into an album and looked at frequently, shown to friends and other people.
Now I have a million photos on my phone and another million on my computer and I don't even remember what they are.
I feel the same way about movies. Most of the movies that I watch nowadays aren't very good. Watching a movie used to be a special occasion (at least a little). And I especially dislike how my patience for artsy or deep movies has decreased. When I was a teenager, I revelled in diving deep into an artsy movie. It stretched my imagination and artistic expression. Nowadays I use movies and tv shows like comfort food. Had a bad day? Watch this superficial empty romantic comedy that you're going to completely forget about the next day. (Not that there's anything wrong with comfort or romcoms per se.)
I even feel the same way about instant messaging. When I was a teenager, I had a pen pal! We would write letters. As in actual paper letters sent by snail post. I would spend time decorating the paper that I wrote on, to make it pretty and special. Getting a letter from your friend used to be a very special occasion. Then you would put a lot of thought into your own.
I have mixed feelings about this, because I love how technology has made it easy to instantly connect with people who are far away. And there definitely can't be too much human connection in the world. And yet...
It's like all this instant-ness is making me feel less connected. I remember when I was a teenager I had a friend who lived in the Netherlands. We wrote e-mails and commented on each other's blog posts. Then after a while she actually travelled to meet me! Not one instant message has ever made me feel so loved and so special than when this person took the time, money and effort to travel to another country to spend time with me in person.*
Also, reading. I used to love books. And I had patience for the classics as well. As well as other thick dense books. I would be bored and I would still read them. And sometimes I would come across a real gem, such as The Handmaid's Tale. And I would revel and enjoy and delight. Feel. Deeply. I don't do that anymore. All I read is self-help. "How to be more productive, less stressed, more happy?"
Oh and travel! Remember when you didn't have wi-fi wherever you went? When I was on a vacation, I was there. I didn't have the internet to check, social media to scroll through. Messaging was super expensive so I didn't do that either. Once or twice per trip I would go to an internet cafe to send a long e-mail to a friend. That and post cards, of course!
It's not like I want to completely go back in time. Thanks to tech, we have things we never thought we could have, and do things we never thought we could do. I just don't want to become a victim to it. I don't want to lose my passion for music, my patience to watch an artsy movie or to read a dense book that someone spent a decade writing. I don't want to lose my care in picking a subject to photograph, or the words to write to someone.
I don't want to lose my focus, my attention, my self.
///
*Although, I have to say that I have gotten some very remarkable text messages. I don't mean to say that those messages were meaningless. I just mean that the format is quite a bit easier to manage than travelling to another country. Not to invalidate the importance and meaning of the content of those instant messages.
///
Previous post about the detox (in Finnish):
30 päivän medialakko
I started this detox last week, on Tuesday evening, Wednesday being the first full detox day. Not that this is super important. Just wanted to mark to beginning somehow.
For the first three or four days, I failed over and over again. I attempted to restrict my internet, phone and social media usage, but couldn't. The phone would persistently find its way into my hands. And when I had managed to put the phone away, suddenly my laptop was open and I continued the use there.
But I didn't give up. I congratulated myself for trying my best and validated the struggle. Then came the fourth day, and I finally found the strength to put everything away and not pick it back up for the next three days (which is where I am now).
And what three days it has been, ladies and gentlemen and people of other genders! Oh my god. It was like releasing a breath that I didn't realize I'd been holding.
I finally managed to put everything away on that fourth day mainly because my partner was having time off from work. I have learned that battling the addiction alone is very difficult for me, but when I have someone to spend time with, suddenly it becomes doable. Even when he went to work yesterday, I still managed to keep myself off the phone and laptop for the entire day. It really helps if you have something to do, though.
Even when I was off media, I wasn't completely off media. As I have previously stated, I can still use online banking, the bus card and maps, for example. But I also did something that wasn't strictly necessary. I listened to music on Spotify.
Now, we have considered cancelling our Spotify subscription. I have lost my interest and passion for music, and I partially blame Spotify. Like we can't concentrate on movies anymore, because there's always another movie to watch if the current one is boring, same thing can happen with music.
I really love how easily Spotify gives access to so much music. You can listen to almost anything. Everything is right there, at the click of a mouse or tap of your finger. And yet...
When we had CDs, I picked out quite carefully which CDs to buy (even if some of those pirate copies were cheap). I valued them more. I listened to them over and over again. The songs became very familiar, very intimate. I wrote out the lyrics and made art inspired by the songs. I shared the songs with friends. I can still remember how important, how precious some of those songs were, how they marked important events in my life.
After access to music became super easy, everything changed. Now it's like Tinder but with songs. There's always more to listen to so why would you waste the time and effort to get to know a song, an album or an artist intimately?
Now I have a million photos on my phone and another million on my computer and I don't even remember what they are.
I feel the same way about movies. Most of the movies that I watch nowadays aren't very good. Watching a movie used to be a special occasion (at least a little). And I especially dislike how my patience for artsy or deep movies has decreased. When I was a teenager, I revelled in diving deep into an artsy movie. It stretched my imagination and artistic expression. Nowadays I use movies and tv shows like comfort food. Had a bad day? Watch this superficial empty romantic comedy that you're going to completely forget about the next day. (Not that there's anything wrong with comfort or romcoms per se.)
I have mixed feelings about this, because I love how technology has made it easy to instantly connect with people who are far away. And there definitely can't be too much human connection in the world. And yet...
It's like all this instant-ness is making me feel less connected. I remember when I was a teenager I had a friend who lived in the Netherlands. We wrote e-mails and commented on each other's blog posts. Then after a while she actually travelled to meet me! Not one instant message has ever made me feel so loved and so special than when this person took the time, money and effort to travel to another country to spend time with me in person.*
Oh and travel! Remember when you didn't have wi-fi wherever you went? When I was on a vacation, I was there. I didn't have the internet to check, social media to scroll through. Messaging was super expensive so I didn't do that either. Once or twice per trip I would go to an internet cafe to send a long e-mail to a friend. That and post cards, of course!
It's not like I want to completely go back in time. Thanks to tech, we have things we never thought we could have, and do things we never thought we could do. I just don't want to become a victim to it. I don't want to lose my passion for music, my patience to watch an artsy movie or to read a dense book that someone spent a decade writing. I don't want to lose my care in picking a subject to photograph, or the words to write to someone.
I don't want to lose my focus, my attention, my self.
///
*Although, I have to say that I have gotten some very remarkable text messages. I don't mean to say that those messages were meaningless. I just mean that the format is quite a bit easier to manage than travelling to another country. Not to invalidate the importance and meaning of the content of those instant messages.
///
Previous post about the detox (in Finnish):
30 päivän medialakko
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