Why digital detox is a crazy idea

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

If social media is ruthlessly consuming your time, that's not the problem. The problem is you.

Here's a confession that doesn't sound cool.

I love social media.

I am embarrassed to say this, but I will say more. I see how Facebook enriches my life every day.

Smart people tell me smart things on Facebook. I don't know which Facebook haters are looking at, but mine is full of good. People share their joys, such as having a baby. They tell how grandfather went through the war with the accordion. They drop off to collect a friend's sisters for an operation for their daughter. They are looking for owners for stray dogs. Introduce. They're joking. What's wrong with that?

Saying "I love social media" isn't cool at all today. But you're cool if you say:

• "I have a digital detox right now."
• “I don’t post on Facebook, so as not to 'feed the monkeys'”.
• "I deleted my social media accounts."

Or this trend with signs in a cafe. “We don't have Wi-Fi. Talk to each other."

When there is no Wi-Fi in the cafe, this is not a digital detox. It's the manager's wish that you order more and leave faster.

Now it will be about why you post. Then - why read the tape. In the end - what else to do.

Why post

I was always amazed why keeping a diary of the positive events of the day is self-development, and posting the joyful events of the day on the social network is exhibitionism and addiction.

Friends, post good things on social networks. Post more often! This is an exercise in the ability to find beauty in life, even in the saddest day. But the exercise is not too easy.

First, you need to spend the day in such a way that there is at least something dull in it. For example, meet friends, take a walk, read a book. Run! There will be a great post.

For some reason, it is believed that social networks compete with an active life offline. As you can see, quite the opposite. To post something you need, you first have to do something that needs to be done.

Secondly, you must be able to notice what is interesting and beautiful. Tell yourself: "But a cool thing is happening to me now!"

Thirdly, you need to be able to convey this. We need to think about the wording. We need to take a picture of it so that people understand what the joy is. Or what is love, or tenderness, or sadness.

At the university we were taught that the thought in the head of the speaker is one thing. The words that he picked up are already another thought, distorted. And the thought in the listener's head is the third.

The more often you post, the better you will learn to convey emotion and thought through words and pictures.

Being able to choose words and pictures to convey thoughts with almost no loss is an awesome skill. It will help in work and in the family. This skill, like any other, is pumped through practice.

Why read the feed

Reading the tape is also an exercise. Exercise on the ability to be happy for others. Exercise of generous praise.

If you've read an interesting post, what makes you not like it?

• Laziness (why?).
• So that the author does not become arrogant. The post already has a lot of likes.
• Fear of depreciation. I will often put likes, they will cease to be happy.
• So that people do not see how much I read social networks.

All this is nonsense. When you read quietly, neither friends nor Facebook know anything about you. Do not be surprised later why there are chernukha and cats in your feed.

Facebook pokes pop into your feed when it doesn't know what you really like. He needs data - your likes and other reactions - to be useful to you. Machine Learning, of course, is cool, but without data, no hello.

By the way, friends are not very pleased when, when they meet, it turns out that you have always read them, but have never checked in. Feeling like this boy.

Guys, click likes more often. They are free.;)

If you like, and the feed is still bullshit, then you paid too much attention to such garbage before. It turns out that your tape is your mirror.

There is no reason to blame the mirror if the face is crooked.

Let's not scold the axes

Social media is just a tool. Like an ax. You can cut down a tree with it and heat the house. Or you can go and kill the old woman. It's not him. It is you.

We are used to pinning our own human weaknesses on Zuckerberg and Durov. Social media is not to blame for your procrastination. If you procrastinate, you need to change something in your life.

Social media is not to blame for the fact that your employees are sitting in them during working hours. Do not block access to social networks. Better work with management or employees.

Social networks are not to blame for your friend sitting on VKontakte dining with you. It's just that your friend is more interested in VKontakte than you are.

I am also tempted to flip through Facebook. Sometimes too often. Then I confess to myself that:

I love social media.

When you love someone, you are drawn to it. This is fine! But if it pulls, it does not mean that it will tighten. Will it delay or not, depends only on me. Remember this scene from the movie "In love of my own accord"?

“We work on anything and for anything, just not on our feelings. They are like street kids. They are on their own. Offended - offended. Insulted - you freak out. Laughing - laughing. Where are you? Where are you yourself?"

Output

You and I don't need digital detox, because there are no toxins in digital. Toxins in our heads.

So I have a better idea. Why don't we do a head detox instead of digital detox? For example, meditate.