Are You Breaking Up With the Internet?

I have a problem. I love technology and I really love the internet.

Like many of you I anxiously anticipate the happenings of the world when I wake up. I’m guilty of checking my phone for news from sun up to sun down. Sometimes I fall asleep looking at my phone or my iPad and I’m always engaged with social media in one way or another. I’m the epitome of a tech crazed millennial. I can’t ever seem to get enough.

Technology has made the world smaller and so easy to stay connected. It’s addictive and distracting, and many of us fall for it every single day. I always end up wondering how I get so much accomplished while taking quick glances at news alerts and articles. Shoot, I wonder sometimes if I could get even more done. Don’t answer that for me, I’m pretty sure I know what you’re thinking.

Anywho, I was having a conversation a few weeks back about a few of my friends deleting social media and later ran across this Time article about funny man/writer Aziz Ansari giving up the interwebs.

[su_quote cite=”I wanted to stop that thing where I get home and look at websites for an hour and a half, checking to see if there’s a new thing. And read a book instead. I’ve been doing it for a couple months and it’s worked. I’m reading, like, three books right now. I’m putting something in my mind. It feels so much better than just reading the Internet and not remembering anything.”][/su_quote]

Don’t we all Aziz, don’t we all…Well, sure some of you don’t. The internet is pretty fun but what I took away from this article and my chitty-chats was that there is so much trash that we’re feeding our brains for no good reason. We all know Trump is there, we all know natural disasters are a thing, we all know folks will put up a fabulous picture of their world travels and pretend they don’t still eat ramen or Easy Mac, we all know that everyone will show the best of themselves and if they don’t it’s because the sub-Tweet game is strong. We know those things are real but what we don’t know is how to turn away and take care of ourselves.

So what do we do?

Let’s be clear, I’m not giving up the internet or my beloved social media, that’s unreasonable for me but what I can do is lay off and maybe delete an app or two. I can make sure to be aware I’m not grabbing for my phone every five minutes like some red eyed tech junky. I can also make sure to work hard at not comparing myself to all the other amazing people I know. It’s unhealthy and ridiculous.

We have so much life to live and we should soak it in. My question to you is, are you going to break up with the internet? <3

-D.Wright