Helen, thanks so much for sharing your experience here! I will be sure to share your reflections in the upcoming follow-up post. I was particularly struck that you found yourself more alive and the world more beautiful. I hope that your practices will inspire and encourage others to redirect attention to the real world :)
Hi Helen, it was lovely to read your thoughts on your fast, particularly as you're in the younger generation who have grown up with this stuff. I think the more examples we hear from people like you pushing back, the easier other younger people will find it to have a go. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you! I credit a lot of this to my parents who didn't allow me to access the internet until I was a teenager, but even then I used to struggle a lot. Gen z and gen alpha really have a serious struggle, as do all of us.
Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. I’d like to hear more about the reasons behind when you slip back into it (if you do at all). So that I can do better when I step away from screens
Is there a particular kind of boredom that pulls you back into it, does the context of your boredom affect if you do? Do some distractions work better than others? Do you still explore rabbit holes without the internet?
You are so very welcome! I think it was/is mostly boredom, because it is easier to just go down an internet rabbit hole than get up and something productive. Especially after its become such a habit. I've also found if I slip up once it's easier to slip deeper and deeper-which is part of the reason I like to be restrictive. Because it can honestly feel like you're a recovering addict, like you prefer not doing it but it's still very hard.
If I'm tired and bored is when it gets hard, or if I feel like I don't have time to work on something. My best strategies have been making sure I carry a book or journal with me.
Yes! I still explore some rabbit holes, but I still use the internet as a tool to assist, but its become less of a time suck, and I'll be very focused about it. I've found myself reading a lot of non fiction which certainly counts as a rabbit hole, but stuff like trip planning, specific research, or writing are tasks I do better online. And, I'm okay with that. As long as I don't feel like I'm loosing my time online, like now I feel more control over how I interact with it. Sorry for how long this is! Hopefully that answers all your questions :)
I'll also add that I really love music, and financially it's impractical to own every record, so I listen to a lot of Spotify, and I don't really bad about that. I'll probably write something about how I've been able to grow further away from screens and still allow and use a lot of music. I definitely went through a time where the context/amount of music I listened to was problematic.
Thank you for all the detail here! There’s so many nuggets of wisdom in your story. From what I can tell you’ve found an approach to using internet in a healthy way that allows for more balance than a lot of people.
I hope you continue to write and keep those of us in mind who are still figuring out how to manage our screen time
Thank you so much! Your blog was very encouraging to me :)
I can confirm that this fast was beneficial to Helen and a great example to her family. She makes us all better.
Helen, thanks so much for sharing your experience here! I will be sure to share your reflections in the upcoming follow-up post. I was particularly struck that you found yourself more alive and the world more beautiful. I hope that your practices will inspire and encourage others to redirect attention to the real world :)
Hi Helen, it was lovely to read your thoughts on your fast, particularly as you're in the younger generation who have grown up with this stuff. I think the more examples we hear from people like you pushing back, the easier other younger people will find it to have a go. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you! I credit a lot of this to my parents who didn't allow me to access the internet until I was a teenager, but even then I used to struggle a lot. Gen z and gen alpha really have a serious struggle, as do all of us.
Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. I’d like to hear more about the reasons behind when you slip back into it (if you do at all). So that I can do better when I step away from screens
Is there a particular kind of boredom that pulls you back into it, does the context of your boredom affect if you do? Do some distractions work better than others? Do you still explore rabbit holes without the internet?
You are so very welcome! I think it was/is mostly boredom, because it is easier to just go down an internet rabbit hole than get up and something productive. Especially after its become such a habit. I've also found if I slip up once it's easier to slip deeper and deeper-which is part of the reason I like to be restrictive. Because it can honestly feel like you're a recovering addict, like you prefer not doing it but it's still very hard.
If I'm tired and bored is when it gets hard, or if I feel like I don't have time to work on something. My best strategies have been making sure I carry a book or journal with me.
Yes! I still explore some rabbit holes, but I still use the internet as a tool to assist, but its become less of a time suck, and I'll be very focused about it. I've found myself reading a lot of non fiction which certainly counts as a rabbit hole, but stuff like trip planning, specific research, or writing are tasks I do better online. And, I'm okay with that. As long as I don't feel like I'm loosing my time online, like now I feel more control over how I interact with it. Sorry for how long this is! Hopefully that answers all your questions :)
I'll also add that I really love music, and financially it's impractical to own every record, so I listen to a lot of Spotify, and I don't really bad about that. I'll probably write something about how I've been able to grow further away from screens and still allow and use a lot of music. I definitely went through a time where the context/amount of music I listened to was problematic.
Thank you for all the detail here! There’s so many nuggets of wisdom in your story. From what I can tell you’ve found an approach to using internet in a healthy way that allows for more balance than a lot of people.
I hope you continue to write and keep those of us in mind who are still figuring out how to manage our screen time
Thank you! I plan to write a few follow up posts about this, seeing how much people have enjoyed this.