Disconnecting from the internet feels impossible for me
I've been thinking about the idea of leaving my phone at home more and more often. Obviously this is inspired by the recent surge of posts about going offline, and lessening digital footprint, but honestly the phone is just part of my problem.
Being one of the people that never adopted modern social media it should be trivial. I've already muted Discord and logged out of YouTube so no suggestions or scrolling to be done there. Firefox has been uninstalled and using the internet on a phone browser without adblock is akin to voluntary torture; I'd rather not if you can believe that. Even the news I reduced to Teletext.
The phone is just part of the problem with all of this actually. General internet reliance would be a better name for it. Some examples:
- Certain restaurants around only allow reservations online
- I can no longer navigate without Google Maps
- Stores closed down so hobby materials are online only for me
- Contact with friends stopped being primarily in-person long ago
- Most my entertainment comes from the internet now
- The news cycle went online
- Discussion about shows/movies I watch is online
There's way more to this than what pops to mind, worst of all is that my job (network admin) would not even exist without the internet so all this gives me a double feeling. I work with and for the internet 9 hours a day, and when nothing else crosses my path for the evening it just becomes more internet.
Yes I read some books, yes I do some tech projects, I design some 3D printing models and even have community hobbies for summertime, but even then it feels like I use too much internet to truly ever live without it and lately that's been bothering me.
Might attempt to disconnect for a weekend soon to feel if I like that, but filling the time is gonna be my main challenge at this point.