Every now and then I run across a story like this where someone is overburdened with communication and technology and wants to give it all up for a fixed time to cleanse themselves from the toxicity of modern life. Then they come back renewed, with new energy to conquer it all, and tell everyone how great it is and that everyone should give solitary confinement or meditation a serious attempt. Then a few months later, they get back into their old overloaded lifestyle of stress and constant work.
No, you don't need to give it all up for a month or year to find yourself. This is reaching out to the other extreme because you hope to end up in the center eventually. How about just slowly moving to the center from where you are? Get rid of the email+text features from you cellphone. Billions of people live perfectly fine without it. Keep GPS/web on your phone but only use when needed. Feel free to check your email whenever you have a few minutes but don't reply to it immediately. Shape your routine so you get to do what's important and not just what's urgent.
When not doing something productive or relaxing on the computer, step away. Go kayaking, hiking, camping, or jogging. Go to the movies, mall, museum, theater, art show, or a theme park. Get a backyard project, build something in real life, get your hands dirty. And while you do all of this, make adequate use of the technology available to you without feeling crushed under it. The purpose of technology is to solve real-life problems. It is not to replace real-life with a 24/7 stream of stress. People are good in general. Don't ignore them for a month because they contact you too much using different mediums. Spend more time with them in person, even if they annoy you. And use your knowledge of technology to enrich your and their lives. What good is 15 years of computer knowledge if you renounce it instead of sharing it with others?
Connectivity is not bad. What is bad is not knowing what form of communication to give more value to. Figure out your communication medium hierarchy and live by it. Mine goes:
Face-2-Face > Video chat > Phone > Email > Message boards > Social Networks
My social goal is to take people from the lower end and move them towards higher end. So I may get a friend message me through Facebook, then we'll email, then phone, with the final goal to hang out next time one of us is in town. Without technology, none of this would be possible. I love technology, but only enough to enable me to improve my real-life social activities.
You're onto something, and crash diets/extremes are no good, but there is a lot of value in giving it all up for periods of time. I wish I had opportunities to do this more frequently, once a year for a month would be very nice. I don't mean vacation - I mean disconnect.
There is so much going on, so much information coming in, so many interactions in our lives that many of our perspectives are on autopilot and if we get too buried, outside influences have too much influence on our perspectives.
I have taken time out a number of times in life, ranging from a month to two months. No friends, no family, no things to do, no internet, picked up a newspaper a few times (if you added up all of them I'd say 3 or 4) - spent most of my time outdoors, occasionally with music, and interaction with people I came across, and with no intention of keeping in touch. Works best out of country; first time was in the Himalayas, but one year I was poor and so I just went to a city a few hundred miles from anyone who knew me. The results are simple: various things that have been jumping around in your head settle, things that would have taken a year to figure out become crystal clear by week two, your life in so many ways becomes very clear, and you come out of all this with an incredible focus, energy, and just freshness.
You could do studies I suppose that figure out if this increases your overall efficiency, if it leads to better ideas, but such a study would only feed my curiosities because the value in this is more than just increasing efficiency, or improving products -- its about increasing the quality of life.
Reflection, pausing, meta-cognition, wandering into an alternate mindset are good to integrate into ones overall lifestyle, but sky diving for a weekend, or chilling out for 30 minutes a day - it seems with a busy life, as I'm guessing yours is as well - it's often like swimming against the current. It's nice to pause the current, enjoy your thoughts, paddle around some without worrying about it. It's very nice. I don't think it's going to happen this year for me, and that's unfortunate.
This is similar to crash dieting or excercise binges - people don't bother to fit eating or excercising into their regular habits so they do "crashes" to try and feel better.
Every now and then I run across a story like this where someone is overburdened with communication and technology and wants to give it all up for a fixed time to cleanse themselves from the toxicity of modern life. Then they come back renewed, with new energy to conquer it all, and tell everyone how great it is and that everyone should give solitary confinement or meditation a serious attempt. Then a few months later, they get back into their old overloaded lifestyle of stress and constant work.
No, you don't need to give it all up for a month or year to find yourself. This is reaching out to the other extreme because you hope to end up in the center eventually. How about just slowly moving to the center from where you are? Get rid of the email+text features from you cellphone. Billions of people live perfectly fine without it. Keep GPS/web on your phone but only use when needed. Feel free to check your email whenever you have a few minutes but don't reply to it immediately. Shape your routine so you get to do what's important and not just what's urgent.
When not doing something productive or relaxing on the computer, step away. Go kayaking, hiking, camping, or jogging. Go to the movies, mall, museum, theater, art show, or a theme park. Get a backyard project, build something in real life, get your hands dirty. And while you do all of this, make adequate use of the technology available to you without feeling crushed under it. The purpose of technology is to solve real-life problems. It is not to replace real-life with a 24/7 stream of stress. People are good in general. Don't ignore them for a month because they contact you too much using different mediums. Spend more time with them in person, even if they annoy you. And use your knowledge of technology to enrich your and their lives. What good is 15 years of computer knowledge if you renounce it instead of sharing it with others?
Connectivity is not bad. What is bad is not knowing what form of communication to give more value to. Figure out your communication medium hierarchy and live by it. Mine goes:
My social goal is to take people from the lower end and move them towards higher end. So I may get a friend message me through Facebook, then we'll email, then phone, with the final goal to hang out next time one of us is in town. Without technology, none of this would be possible. I love technology, but only enough to enable me to improve my real-life social activities.