Burnout / An Internet Fast.
In the summer of 2024 I did this
I have been moderately online for a long time, yes I took breaks from social media, and from the daily harangue of news. But not for a long. And not completely off the net. No email. No web browsing. No social media. No online research. No streaming, music nor videos. As if the internet did not exist.
So I have decided to do just that. This is not about harm reduction. More of an experiment on my thinking, emotions, and attention. I am not trying to gain anything, or lose anything. I am just doing a "notice the change" thing. Sure I have some preconceived notions on how this will go. But I doubt the accuracy of such. So I am going to keep a diary, some short notes on how it's going. These will be quick stream of consciousness things. Probably not informative to anyone but me. I am writing this long hand, and if interesting will type it up.
(note: i am retired and do not need the internet for work, do not try this if your joby job depends on the net.)
(note: I have made a commitment to hang with a local Zen sangha one day a week, to sit, practice, and perhaps talk a bit. So this will get me out of the house and socializing.)
Day 1 internet detox:
Bad. I feel the overwhelming sense that I am missing out. Highlighting parts of the book I am reading that I feel I must share. Shorter attention span. Starting projects without thinking them through. Strong unease. Mood swings. I'm frequently changing the genre of the music I'm listening to. (note; I have a very large selection of locally stored music.)
Day 2 internet detox:
Flighty. Unsettled. Picking stupid little unnecessary household chores to do. Still a strong feeling of missing out. When I am outside in the forest this subsides. Yet when I walk inside I have to remind myself not to reconnect. Lots of self-bargaining. Can I just check my RSS feeds. Nope.
Day 3 internet detox:
Mood restless. Like a barometer oscillating.
This is getting complex. I have to go into town to the library to pick up and return books but also to grab some ebooks, and magazines. Technically, this is over the library servers, and some might say it's part of the Internet. I justify this by being physically in the library. More bargaining.
Day 4 internet detox:
Mood second guessing myself.
Maybe I should have done this sooner. This was my day to go sit at the local Zen temple, and eat a lunch. In the sit I was distracted more that usual. The food and company helped a lot. On the drive back home I convinced myself this was stupid and unnecessary. But I did talk to the rōshi, and she was encouraging. So I continue.
Now late at night, insomnia, and usually my cue to go on social media and talk about it. My standard routine for insomnia is to get up and study something hard. A science journal, on a subject I know little about. Tonight that is not working. Mood sleepless and anxious.
Day 5 internet detox:
First glimmer of a feeling of change. While in town I picked up a physical newspaper, and in reading found a bunch of news I did not know happened. None of it affected me personally. Sure I was curious, but felt little impetus to dive in and find out more, or different viewpoints. Four day old news, is still news to me. Mood a bit less reactive to crap I have no control over.
Later: I had a thought. This feels a bit like grief. A thing I know well. No not exactly, but close. In the way that if I am busy with a task I don't notice it, but when idle I am obsessed with the idea of what I'm missing. And the bargaining.
Still later: I ask what do I get from posting on social media, now that I'm not? Some sense of community. But mostly when I share a link post, and see the thanks or a spark of discussion, I feel a hit of self satisfaction. A validation. This is seductive. Not having this feels at the moment like an absence.
Day 6 internet detox:
Second glimmer of a change. I take a walk in the forest every morning. Short 2 to 5 klicks. Have done this for years. Today as I was coming up the private road on my way home. I stoped and turned around. No hurry to get home. Walked down to the river to have a look see. Not my usual route.
Remembering winter
The word cold
Is not cold
The river is low
Later: More time to listen to music. I sorted my huge music library from least listened too, to most, and pressed play. Man that's strange I forgot I had all that.
Late night: You know when you start a new thing and you get to a point where you are now good enough at that thing to know you still suck at it? How do you push through the valley of suck?
You don’t. You set up camp.
Day 7 internet detox:
Today I did miss something quite a lot. Research stuff. I do have a very good set of dictionaries and references books. But in many cases they are not up-to-date. So any cutting edge idea I read about, I strongly feel the lack of online background.
My neighbors already thought I was slightly crazy but today we were talking about some things that happened in the news that I knew nothing about. We had a laugh.
“Slowing down is not a function of speed. It is a function of awareness, It’s a function of presence.”
Mood: Settling in to a new routine. I have slowed down in my chores and cooking. Taking more time. To some lesser extent enjoying it more. Have I gained any attention span? Too soon to tell. The impulse to check email, or news is very slowly drifting away.
Day 8 internet detox:
Is less really more?
What advice would you give young people?
"Well .. I'd tell them to slow down, take a breath, unplug, and pay close attention to nature. Then speed back up, plug in, and tell us all about it."
One of my neighbors has two kids both leaving today for dorm rooms at two different state colleges. She confessed to me that she feels bad that she is so looking forward to them being gone.
Later: Reading more fiction. Is better than watching videos. Are we at peek youtube yet?
Late night: Another glimmer of change. My eyes feel a bit better. I have cataract surgery coming up this month and my eyesight is getting pretty bad. Yet with almost no screen time, they fatigue less. Reading, (ink on paper), in sunlight, is much less stressful. I can read for longer.
Day 9 internet detox:
Can we fix the problem that leads to the need for an internet detox?
"All technology comes with a social power dynamic, that is often not seen until after it is well adopted. The luddites were not against the tech of the power loom, they were against the loss of human agency."
Notice: Some small increase in my attention span. I can get to, and stay in deep focus faster and longer. This is a marginal increase. With a shaky causal link to this detox.
Mood: Much more comfortable with this no internet thing. Each day I go longer without thinking about it. I still miss looking stuff up, and yes I miss some social media friends.
Day 10 internet detox:
Had to use a phone, voice to voice, to do some bureaucratic crap. Much harder than a web page. So yes there are limits. But I got it done by lying that my computer was broken.
The FOMO is almost completely gone.
I live in a high wildfire area. So I'm dependent on fire watch news. Luckily I do have a bunch of radio gear, that will keep me informed.
Day 11 End of internet detox:
Stumbled back online, only to find the same old stuff, different names and places. Yet I did learn that the internet is useful to humans, only in small doses. It really does affect, my wellbeing. Some for the positive, and some negative, but hardly ever neutral. This was actually very informative and I highly recommend it as a personal experiment.
In the summer of 2024 I did this
I have been moderately online for a long time, yes I took breaks from social media, and from the daily harangue of news. But not for a long. And not completely off the net. No email. No web browsing. No social media. No online research. No streaming, music nor videos. As if the internet did not exist.
So I have decided to do just that. This is not about harm reduction. More of an experiment on my thinking, emotions, and attention. I am not trying to gain anything, or lose anything. I am just doing a "notice the change" thing. Sure I have some preconceived notions on how this will go. But I doubt the accuracy of such. So I am going to keep a diary, some short notes on how it's going. These will be quick stream of consciousness things. Probably not informative to anyone but me. I am writing this long hand, and if interesting will type it up.
(note: i am retired and do not need the internet for work, do not try this if your joby job depends on the net.)
(note: I have made a commitment to hang with a local Zen sangha one day a week, to sit, practice, and perhaps talk a bit. So this will get me out of the house and socializing.)
Day 1 internet detox:
Bad. I feel the overwhelming sense that I am missing out. Highlighting parts of the book I am reading that I feel I must share. Shorter attention span. Starting projects without thinking them through. Strong unease. Mood swings. I'm frequently changing the genre of the music I'm listening to. (note; I have a very large selection of locally stored music.)
Day 2 internet detox:
Flighty. Unsettled. Picking stupid little unnecessary household chores to do. Still a strong feeling of missing out. When I am outside in the forest this subsides. Yet when I walk inside I have to remind myself not to reconnect. Lots of self-bargaining. Can I just check my RSS feeds. Nope.
Day 3 internet detox:
Mood restless. Like a barometer oscillating.
This is getting complex. I have to go into town to the library to pick up and return books but also to grab some ebooks, and magazines. Technically, this is over the library servers, and some might say it's part of the Internet. I justify this by being physically in the library. More bargaining.
Day 4 internet detox:
Mood second guessing myself.
Maybe I should have done this sooner. This was my day to go sit at the local Zen temple, and eat a lunch. In the sit I was distracted more that usual. The food and company helped a lot. On the drive back home I convinced myself this was stupid and unnecessary. But I did talk to the rōshi, and she was encouraging. So I continue.
Now late at night, insomnia, and usually my cue to go on social media and talk about it. My standard routine for insomnia is to get up and study something hard. A science journal, on a subject I know little about. Tonight that is not working. Mood sleepless and anxious.
Day 5 internet detox:
First glimmer of a feeling of change. While in town I picked up a physical newspaper, and in reading found a bunch of news I did not know happened. None of it affected me personally. Sure I was curious, but felt little impetus to dive in and find out more, or different viewpoints. Four day old news, is still news to me. Mood a bit less reactive to crap I have no control over.
Later: I had a thought. This feels a bit like grief. A thing I know well. No not exactly, but close. In the way that if I am busy with a task I don't notice it, but when idle I am obsessed with the idea of what I'm missing. And the bargaining.
Still later: I ask what do I get from posting on social media, now that I'm not? Some sense of community. But mostly when I share a link post, and see the thanks or a spark of discussion, I feel a hit of self satisfaction. A validation. This is seductive. Not having this feels at the moment like an absence.
Day 6 internet detox:
Second glimmer of a change. I take a walk in the forest every morning. Short 2 to 5 klicks. Have done this for years. Today as I was coming up the private road on my way home. I stoped and turned around. No hurry to get home. Walked down to the river to have a look see. Not my usual route.
Remembering winter
The word cold
Is not cold
The river is low
Later: More time to listen to music. I sorted my huge music library from least listened too, to most, and pressed play. Man that's strange I forgot I had all that.
Late night: You know when you start a new thing and you get to a point where you are now good enough at that thing to know you still suck at it? How do you push through the valley of suck?
You don’t. You set up camp.
Day 7 internet detox:
Today I did miss something quite a lot. Research stuff. I do have a very good set of dictionaries and references books. But in many cases they are not up-to-date. So any cutting edge idea I read about, I strongly feel the lack of online background.
My neighbors already thought I was slightly crazy but today we were talking about some things that happened in the news that I knew nothing about. We had a laugh.
“Slowing down is not a function of speed. It is a function of awareness, It’s a function of presence.”
Mood: Settling in to a new routine. I have slowed down in my chores and cooking. Taking more time. To some lesser extent enjoying it more. Have I gained any attention span? Too soon to tell. The impulse to check email, or news is very slowly drifting away.
Day 8 internet detox:
Is less really more?
What advice would you give young people?
"Well .. I'd tell them to slow down, take a breath, unplug, and pay close attention to nature. Then speed back up, plug in, and tell us all about it."
One of my neighbors has two kids both leaving today for dorm rooms at two different state colleges. She confessed to me that she feels bad that she is so looking forward to them being gone.
Later: Reading more fiction. Is better than watching videos. Are we at peek youtube yet?
Late night: Another glimmer of change. My eyes feel a bit better. I have cataract surgery coming up this month and my eyesight is getting pretty bad. Yet with almost no screen time, they fatigue less. Reading, (ink on paper), in sunlight, is much less stressful. I can read for longer.
Day 9 internet detox:
Can we fix the problem that leads to the need for an internet detox?
"All technology comes with a social power dynamic, that is often not seen until after it is well adopted. The luddites were not against the tech of the power loom, they were against the loss of human agency."
Notice: Some small increase in my attention span. I can get to, and stay in deep focus faster and longer. This is a marginal increase. With a shaky causal link to this detox.
Mood: Much more comfortable with this no internet thing. Each day I go longer without thinking about it. I still miss looking stuff up, and yes I miss some social media friends.
Day 10 internet detox:
Had to use a phone, voice to voice, to do some bureaucratic crap. Much harder than a web page. So yes there are limits. But I got it done by lying that my computer was broken.
The FOMO is almost completely gone.
I live in a high wildfire area. So I'm dependent on fire watch news. Luckily I do have a bunch of radio gear, that will keep me informed.
Day 11 End of internet detox:
Stumbled back online, only to find the same old stuff, different names and places. Yet I did learn that the internet is useful to humans, only in small doses. It really does affect, my wellbeing. Some for the positive, and some negative, but hardly ever neutral. This was actually very informative and I highly recommend it as a personal experiment.