The Modern Necessity for Digital Self-Regulation

Photo by Ben Sweet on Unsplash

As the 21st-century ripens and technological creep advances, we as modern citizens face new challenges. No longer plagued by the material primitivity of earlier ages, increasingly we are besieged by excess instead. Enter the rather cosmopolitan trend of dopamine fasting, the practice of temporarily abstaining from addictive digital products.

Conscious efforts to rejuvenate this neurological chemical responsible for driving our tech dependence is a testament to the sheer merciless skill of modern technologies to capitalize on the human brain. We are pushed and pulled, nudged and hooked by algorithms that know us better than we know ourselves.

More and more we find ourselves struggling to refrain, to moderate, to resist. Technology both liberates us and imprisons us. It unleashes us on the Wild West of information and consumerism but threatens to snare us in its sticky webs of addiction, indulgence, and sheer quantity. The moralizing caveat of freedom rings true here: It is ultimately our responsibility as autonomous individuals to regulate ourselves amidst the lush carte blanche we inherit.

For many of us, our phone apps are quicksand-like portals. Our fingers hover over their innocuous little colorful squares, before giving in to the rhythmic urge to tap. For some of us, a dull flash of What am I doing really…