Hello!
A month and a half ago at the strike of New Year’s Eve, I locked all of my personal devices in a fire safe, with the exception of my phone as I needed it for work, and detoxed for (almost) the entire month. This is the first time in probably my entire life that I’ve gone this long without my electronics. In this post, I’m going to summarize my experience with the detox and what I learned about myself in the process.
First off before I proceed, I do have a confession to make; while the majority of my devices were inaccessible for most of the detox, I admit that I was a little bit liberal when it came to my smartphone. As a customer service rep, I am required to use my phone in order to work remotely. While I did buy a time-locked kitchen safe for when I didn’t use the phone for work, I didn’t use the safe as often as I probably should. I also had an app/website blocker installed on my phone as well, but it wasn’t foolproof as the battery optimization feature on Android phones constantly breaks certain apps that use background processing (screw you Google!). As a result, I was able to access certain apps from time to time. While I wasn’t as diligent as I could’ve been throughout the detox, and I did relapse a couple times, I still learned a great deal from the experience and did benefit from it.
For the most part, I wouldn’t say that the detox was particularly life changing. For the first couple of weeks, I was fairly bored and had to find ways to fill my schedule with other activities, especially on my days off. However, surprisingly, I didn’t miss my electronics as much as I thought I would. For so many years I had been a chronic YouTube addict and didn’t like the feelings of guilt and misery after going down a video-binge spiral, so detoxing from YouTube was frankly liberating. While I somewhat enjoy video games, It’s hard for me to really enjoy them like I used to, so abstaining from gaming wasn’t all that bad. I’ve never particularly enjoyed using social media and while I love interacting with my tribe on Farcaster (a subject of which I plan to explore in a future post), it felt nice to have some digital solitude for a while. The one thing I dearly missed however was listening to my music. I didn’t realize how much music benefited my mental and emotional health until I could no longer listen to it. I’m listening to my favorite dark ambiance playlist as I write this and man oh man it’s nice to have my music back! Still, even without my music, I found value in sitting with silence for a while as it allowed me to be more attentive to my thoughts and emotions.
The boredom of not having my electronics with me subsided after the first couple of weeks. One thing I noticed that improved considerably was my sleep schedule. The quality of my sleep has been declining of late and it’s something that I’ve resolved to fix, so it was very revealing to me just how much electronics affected my sleeping patterns. Without my gadgets, I also had more time in my day to do some self reflection via meditation and journal writing, habits that I want to continue fostering in my daily life.
I think the most important revelation that I received throughout that 30 day period was the notion that achieving change in my life does not happen overnight, or even after a month. Remember how I mentioned earlier that I relapsed when it came to my phone? One of the main reasons I wanted to pursue this detox was to change my relationship with my electronics and break bad habits. Still, even after a few weeks of the detox, I went right back to my old patterns of behavior. I was rather disappointed with myself at first, but after some introspection, I began to realize that making lasting change is not a sprint; it’s a marathon, one that may take my entire life to complete.
One foot in front of the other
“...behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.”
- Alma 37: 6
I recently finished college with my Bachelor of Science in psychology, and while I don’t consider myself a neuroscientist, I’ve learned enough about neurology to know that the brain does not change overnight; it can take days, months, and sometimes even years for the brain to create and reinforce new pathways and prune out old ones. The brain is most certainly capable of change, that is what neuroplasticity is all about, but it takes time, patience, and most importantly, consistency. In most cases, this change doesn’t come about due to some monumental task or sweeping change, but rather tiny little changes over a period of time, piece by piece, here a little and there a little.
As someone who is on the autism spectrum, I’ve always had a tendency to think with an all-or-nothing mindset: I either find one big solution to my struggles that will solve them once and for all, or that solution doesn’t work and I need to find another one. This is one of the reasons I went into this detox, because I thought it would be the one silver bullet that will finally help me gain momentum in my life and move on from the bad habits that have held me back for so long. I’ve recently come to accept however that there is no silver bullet. There is no one solution or magic pill that will fix everything in one fell swoop. That’s just not how the nervous system works. Instead, it takes a multitude of different solutions, changes, and habits that are built up over time. You start with one good habit to implement, take some time to make sure it is cemented, and then move on to the next one. It’s not one giant leap; it’s putting one foot in front of the other
I can see clearly now that the all-or-nothing mindset that I’ve operated with for so many years is likely the main reason I’ve been going in circles when it comes to self improvement and making positive change. While I didn’t entirely stick with my detox as I originally planned, the experience allowed me to finally see through that unproductive mode of thinking, and it’s helped me tremendously when it comes to self improvement. For example, I’ve recently started to implement small changes to my bedroom and night-time routine in order to improve my sleep. Once I’ve established good sleep patterns, I plan to gradually add specific activities to my daily schedule, such as reading or digital art, hobbies that will enrich both my mind and spirit. It’s the little changes you make that count.
In Conclusion
I personally would like to try a 30 day digital detox again in the near future, and I do plan to designate Sunday as my “detox day” so I can reset myself at the beginning of the week. If you’ve never done a digital detox, it is something I would recommend trying at least once. For now however, it is good to be back with my fellow netizens in cyberspace, and I’m excited for what is to come in this new year.
Forward
As this is my very first post on Paragraph, I feel like I should introduce myself. I've been involved in the web3 space and the Farcaster community for a while now. I originally started posting on Substack last year, but thanks to the introduction of Frames (a subject that I certainly plan on writing about at a later date) and the persuasion of a fellow caster (thanks @danicaswanson!), I recently decided to migrate here. You can see all of my older posts on my Substack here:
Thank you so much for reading and see you in the next post!
