The day I got disconnected from the Internet
Before starting, Let’s me make something clear- I am a student. A tech enthusiast. And of this generation.
It was a regular evening and I was surfing through social media. I had a train to catch up later that night and suddenly the phone stopped working.
Well, I did have a spare but it was not one with an Internet connection. I felt helpless. No internet! Do you know what that means? Nothing to keep me entertained! No cab booking! No e-wallets! No music! Nothing.
It was time to go to the station. So I went out dragging my bags on streets trying to find a ride while swearing the entire time. Luckily I got one after 10 mins of pure struggle. But you know what, something good happened that day. A realization.
With nothing to look at, I was looking outside my normal periphery of some 40º at max. “It made me think”. My thoughts suddenly found immense clarity.
I started thinking about the fact that I have so much time to spare. Then I thought about all the benefits I would have. I could think on my projects. I could spare time that I usually just wasted scrolling through Social Media. What’s the worst that could happen? I couldn’t get instant updates on what everyone else is doing! I couldn’t read the articles spoon fed by Google’s algorithms!
But slowly, reality started hitting me. Technology has become a fundamental part of us. Everything is online. I have my work online. My ideas in Keep notes. Transactions in Splitwise. I have my entertainment online. I order food and clothes online. I have at max 500 bucks in the wallet, because even that is online. So, technology does have it’s advantages.
But, what about spare time? What about all the clarity I was getting? Is it all just a distant dream?
This kept be going back and forth in the same loop and made me think of this image:
Now comes the BIG question, what to do then? Should I disconnect or remain connected?
It is entirely up to you. But is it? Not entirely.
Let’s think of a piece of a really delicious cake at a hand’s reach and some sweet strawberries a couple of miles away. What would you choose? You might love strawberries but you do like cake as well and the cake is really near.
This is technology. You have good and you have better. You need to disconnect from the good to get the better.
We put our social accounts at the center of the home screen. Why? So it is accessible. Let’s make it difficult to reach to.
This works! Figure out what you really want to do with the phone or the internet. Put it in a priority list. Make the least productive least accessible.
Stop the notifications all together. So, you use the technology to work for you, when you want and not the other-way round.
We can’t disconnect completely from technology/internet/smartphone. We can disconnect as often as required to.
