The wanderer's narration of journey towards being digital nomad!
Exploring what it takes to get out of the digital echo-chambers!
Last few days, I am thinking about what it really takes to live a peaceful and calm life in the digital world around us. Is it possible to avoid all those dopamine hits and just keep doing the stuff diligently? Do I really need to know about everything happening in the life of strangers near us? Wouldn’t it be a bliss just to live that undisturbed life? Can one really sustain like this in the modern world around us?
This is second in the series of Digital Wellbeing and 10th in the series of challenge to post 100 posts in the year.
Background:
Frankly speaking, some might think I am already living this peaceful life, what’s all this bluff! Thinking out loud here, I have many people like this around me, but most of the others are sort of embedded deep into the social media platforms!
One advise that silicon valley technocrats give and follow in their own houses, is minimizing the screen time of the children and themselves. The discoveries of like button, continuous scrolling and much more ensured use engagement and billions got hooked to it.
So, the question is are we taking any steps to minimize our own screen time and social media engagement?
I de-activated my personal Facebook account back in 2017-18, in first year of my engineering and since then, I have never been to Facebook.
During engineering and in later years, Instagram somehow hooked me in and I went deep into it, sort of got addicted to it, then through the tough learnings, learnt about it, and with intensive efforts, managed to de-activate personal Instagram account.
Obviously, it wasn’t easy to let go the efforts of years, those feed posts, stories, followers, messages and that metadata of my life. Some feel de-activating it for some time and then using it again, simply fixes the problem.
But, this radical view of permanently shutting down, was a momentary one like all others. But, the test of time is proving it to be the most critical decision yet in my life!
The Process:
Initially you sign-up for social media accounts in Instagram/ snapchat just because all your peers are there and you don’t want to be outlier in your group. Slowly you get used to scrolling feed and sending snaps. The interesting thing about all this being, knowingly unknowingly you do start doing this sub-consciously.
I never used snapchat beyond clicking photos with filters. But, this network effect, dopamine hits and the level of social engineering programmed to keep you engaged in the Instagram is beyond one’s imagination. Somehow, these social media platforms know you better than yourself.
Ever wandered, how you get to see the things you like often and in loop and you never wish to put that phone down. The critical thing that we also know is the addictive reels that are ingested in your feed.
What harm does this lead to? You need to be completely free and do nothing for some time of the day. Nowadays whenever you have some time, you simply start scrolling the feed. Hours pass by and reels just don’t stop! This somehow exhausts your mind, brain and body, leading to late nights and continuous switching contexts.
You see something for seconds and then something else pops up. Do you ever remember the content of that reel, or is it like that content on filter screen, which is just reflecting rather than being absorbing?
Is it really useful then? If not, then why are we consuming it? With AI slop (AI generated videos, images) everywhere, does it really make sense to consume all this content?
Those were few questions that popped up, which I thought about and just decided to delete account rather than temporary fixes like de-activation. The question might be, how do I stay updated then? I prefer to consume long form content (videos, podcasts, articles, books) which prompt me to think about it and make informed opinion about the stuff!
The intricacies of the journey:
It’s not easy to get out of rat race, think something different, rather radical, yet decide to act on it and be with your own decision along the way. Sometimes, one might feel he/ she is missing a lot. Other side of the coin being, his/ her deep explorations about things/ topics!
Everyday one has to assure him/ her that he/ she is doing right and he/ she has to continue doing it. This seems difficult when no immediate output is observed for actions taken. As habits needed years to form and strengthen, it definitely is going to take years to reverse it. You do need a good set of peers and keep you engaged in something else to substitute it, otherwise it’s easy to fallback to default.
Striving for calm in the chaos:
Chaos is the new reality and you have to find your own calm in this new world, be it physical/ digital world. In this tough times, where AI is increasingly conquering every aspect of our life and rising geo-political tensions coupled with democracy turned in beaurocratic autocracy, one needs to have his own opinions about things based on genuine information processed by him/ her. The social media enables spread of large scale narratives designed to mislead the masses, keep them unaware of what’s happening around them and nurturing the image of nation, politician, party in his/ her mind.
Calm mind is the first and the utmost requirement of this complex puzzle then for which one needs to get out of his/ her digital echo-chamber.
The purpose:
Few weeks ago, I was seating on a calm beach, listening to sound of waves, sort of meditating without closing my eyes and the thought struck me, what’s beyond the visible horizons of mundane life, a beautiful and meaningful purpose, that drives you to do things to flourish you everyday! For this purpose to think about, one needs to start looking at the horizon of visible life which needs calm mind, body and brain! Then only, you can start your purposeful journey! Are you on that meaningful journey of life?
That’s it for now! Do share your comments/ thoughts/ reviews!