If you're anything like a typical millennial, you take pride in how well you stay on the grid, and for good reason. As our world continues to make technological progress, we all become more interconnected across boundaries that we never thought as crossable before. This in turn is the cause for our seemingly necessary connection to our various devices as if to sustain our own lives.
However, as the world makes this kind of progress, there's a continued belief and many practitioners of an act known as going "off the grid". That's not to say that this isn't a valid way for people to find some relief from the stresses of a city life. There are actually cities people move to for this reason in particular. And every year more and more people move to these cities as they become more and more self-sustainable, less dependent on the outside world for supplies and utilities.
The particular issue I have with this is not in the method itself at all, but rather in the fervid belief by many that this is the only way to find peace and relax: relinquishing as many of your methods of communication as you can.
There seems to be a belief that by unplugging from the high-tech lifestyle is the only way to truly be free of stress, that only when people cut themselves off from how older generations would say "the man" in a technological sense, they can find obtain a sense of tranquility. But once again, as with the stance of the Republican Party and with the followers of the anti-vaxxer movement, I find this a flawed sense of thinking that a small group of people continues to promote to and impose on other people as a sort of panacea for any kind of stress. Can't focus lately? Try a hardcore camping trip. Having anxiety? Try a forest retreat for a day or seven. As if trying to forget something will actually help everyone you tell it to loosen up. (Ever hear that old saying, "Don't think about a polar bear?" and that's suddenly the only thing you can think about? Exactly.)
Of course, complaining about something without proposing a solution would just be aimlessly whining with no solution at all. I can keep my proposition clean and simple: don't shame people for doing what they want and assume they did something wrong if they took your advice and it didn't work for them. After experiencing this enough and even being victim to thinking people are doing things wrong themselves, I learned this is the best way to go about this issue in particular, and even in just giving advice in general. For example, I enjoy a retreat from my busy life, but as a social creature who also finds peace and comfort in friends, taking away my phone and laptop would not be the most conducive action to take, making me one of the people for whom the hermit lifestyle would not be best suited.
I urge you to think about how you receive, process, and even give advice. Are you a person surrounded by people that give such strict advice? Are you a person that gives such strict advice? Thinking about this is just one more way to live a more enjoyable life, developing better problem-solving skills and ultimately being more self-aware and becoming the person you yourself want to be.
