Instagram notifications, Snapchat, e-mails from three different accounts, Groupme chats, Zoom meetings and lectures, pre-recorded lectures, text messages — the anxiety crawled up within me slowly like a burn up my throat.
Then, one day, I stared at my laptop and thought, when was the last time I shut my phone or my laptop off? No, seriously, when was the last time I sat with my thoughts or built something with my hands?
I am not going to sit here and type this on my laptop as I hate on technology. The fact is technology has been our source of sanity in 2020, which has been mostly spent in a kind of survival mode.
It has allowed us to stay in touch with our loved ones, for some to continue work, and to continue schooling. However, technology is both a gift and a curse — this we know.
Too much of it can cause a spiral away from oneself, down a black hole of noise and distraction.
I realized this when every morning, I awoke feeling burdened as if the world was waiting for me to keep my promise and fulfill all of its expectations.
Every morning I woke as though the day had already been robbed from me.
The first thing I did? Check my phone and see all the notifications calling me for my time and my immediate attention. I didn't feel like myself anymore. I was captive to my devices, and all the people they held in them.
That's when I decided to do a digital detox for one day.
Sunday is going to be the day, I told myself on Tuesday. Already, I felt lighter. No phone, no laptop. The rest of the week was spent making sure I completed all my assignments, especially since all of them required a device, even my assigned readings.
Thus, I sustained my productivity on the plans for Sunday — baking, teaching myself to knit again, going for a bike ride, cooking with my mom.
Even doing my laundry in peace seemed motivating. Sunday came, and I did most of these things.
But what I did was not as important as how I felt. Morning came and I woke when my body wanted to. I didn't reach for my phone and made my bed.
The day felt like it was mine, a feeling I now keenly remember since it was so rare.
Looking out the window more, I felt like a part of the world rather than its captive. I felt ready to connect again, to myself and to my family at home. More than anything, I almost never looked at the time (if I did, it was on the analogous clock in my living room), and yet I felt like I had all the time in the world.
The day felt longer, can you believe it? I felt like for once — just once — I wasn't competing against time to get something done, or feel guilty.
Now, I am so conscious of how often technology reminds us of the time, how much time we wasted, spent, have left.
2020 stole time from us, both literally and figuratively. The days blend together, and technology has blurred the lines between work and home.
This digital detox gave me the reset I needed to come back to myself, to my thoughts, and to overcome the initial discomfort of not completing a task.
I honestly felt selfish sometimes during the day, but this feeling was soon replaced with the reminder that I can breathe and that I am allowed to.
From now on, every Sunday is for me.
