Have you noticed that feeling of a slight “down” when your social media post doesn’t work as well as another that was somewhat a hit? The silly little thoughts coming up saying – maybe I should have taken a better shot angle, or put my hair more to the side? Have you? Have you noticed going through your day with having a constant little reminder at the back of your mind – oh, would this be a good picture? Would this make an interesting story? And missing out on REALITY on the way?

I’ve been having this nagging feeling, a subtle guilt-trip from inside, for some time now. Then I noticed the guilt is becoming more, and suppressing it was harder. So, I did the obvious thing – I blamed others for what I felt was my own problem. I started noticing that it is not only me spending endless minutes combined together into hours and days of LIFE on social media; even my partner, who is somewhat ignoring his phone a lot of the time, I noticed, is spending time in front of screens for nothing in particular. And me – well, it’s my job, isn’t it? I have an excuse.

Then I watched a film. A film that told me everything I felt was true and WORSE. (“Social Media Dilemma”)

I knew the film would just confirm my ideas, but it did more, it revealed the harder truth. I heard something about privacy in the last years and once, some time ago, removed myself completely from an online service, and then came back to it, ignoring the knowledge I had about these services. Since then, I have been putting a lot of effort into making myself resist all the hooks of the virtual world. But, I do have an addictive personality. It’s just fact. I had to and have to be extra careful.

So, to put my heart at ease, I did a lot of “cleaning” of the feeds/emails/messages I received, and kept removing content that I found disturbing, repetitive or irrelevant. I kept blocking “spammers” (those lovely people that just feel like sharing everything they see online and assume it would be interesting for you too). I added the screen time app to see how much time I spent on screen. I ignored the evil numbers looking at me, saying I do spend too much time on screen. I also started using a service to tell me it’s too late in the evening or too early in the morning to look at the screen. I even used the app limit, for watching TV more than 2 hours. Somehow, I turned all these reminders telling me I’m spending too much time on screen – off.

I started noticing that I also like to take the phone to the toilet. I wanted not to take it, but I kept going back, half way down the hall, for it. I felt ashamed, but I ignored that too.

One of the things that made me really begin to make a change was the behaviour of my step-daughter after we let her use our phones for a bit. After half an hour/one hour on the phone she was restless, annoyed at us, and refused to do anything creative, refused to spend time in nature and refused everything else for that matter. The cause-of-grumpiness pattern was obvious.

Then I started to leave my phone at home when we were going out, just to “get rid of it”, because I knew if I took it – I would keep staring at it – in the lift, in the car, searching for something “important” while in the shop, checking a map to see where we should be going…

The statistics (and I really like statistics) told me I had around 10 hours of screen time PER DAY. 68 hours in the last 7 days. That I get around 700-900 notification PER DAY on only one chat service. That I pick up my phone on an average of a 100 times per day!

And I thought getting grumpy for nothing was strange. Why on earth am I grumpy most of the time? Surely not because my nose is stuck in online content?

Three things that were confirmed by the film, struck me like lightning. One: the services are designed for you to keep checking them. In spite of me turning off message counts and notifications for most services I use, the one or two I was using, kept coming ALL THE TIME. I also realised I keep checking work messages at 11 at night, at 5 in the morning. Just to see “what is going on online”. The answer is simple: NOTHING. Only time-wasting is happening online. MOSTLY. 99% of the time. We are not machines that can process all this data! Our brains are limited. We are impressionable.

I noticed also the creepy commercials that I felt at times are READING MY MIND. I ignored even that, because I liked the products. Here we come to number two: The services keep showing me nice things, things I like, things I need. Things that make me feel SAFE and COMFORTABLE. And I want to feel safe and comfortable, also feeling I am in control of what I am seeing, by blocking everything that does not feel safe and comfortable. Like, for example, in the world – things are not always safe and comfortable, and it is nicer in the phone world than out THERE (where the TRUTH is). I feel a little like a conspiracy theorist writing every other word in CAPITALS. Even conspiracy theories, I heard, are a product of evil reptile control, making us put the truth in a make-believe context, so the actual truth can be hidden by turning facts into mockery, making the truth into something designed by delusional people.

We’re all sitting out there, with our heads in screens, ignoring life itself, but living in our own little safe virtual worlds, which AI algorithms have created for us – based on GAZILLIONS OF DATA sources, freely given by ourselves, that are taking note of our subconscious behaviour.

And three: once the man-made “algorithms” are set loose in the virtual systems – no one can predict how they will mutate in human hands (riots, hate acts etc.). Also, the social media reptiles can FINE TUNE or completely MODIFY real-life social conduct. The film said so! It said that by tweaking the currents of human subconscious acts, societies can shift their preferences, ways of thinking and ultimately behaviour. As fast as pressing a button!!!

We don’t have to wait for the MATRIX/1984 futures to arrive – THEY ARE HERE.

I am now figuring out a way to stay connected to the work I am doing online, how to make use of the services and make money on others being gullible. Also hoping that the services we provide are healthy for people. Double standards! But, as my dad always said: we live in society, not in the forest. If you want to live with wolves – go ahead, bye.

What I did for my digital detox:

1. TURNED OFF ALL badges, message counts, notifications on phone & computer
2. Replaced my browser and search engine with ‘safe’ ones that do not collect your browsing data
3. Logged out of all services, actually I did a reset of privacy data on my phone and turned off location services and denied mic & camera access for 97% of apps  
4. Deleted all except one social media app (work reasons again)
5. Stopped using Facebook for news and communication and kept it only for work, which I intend to reduce more
6. Deleted my personal Instagram account
7. Kept 2 services for work communication

What I still want to do:
1. Transfer my email account to another server, with better encryption policies
2. Get online storage that has better security
3. Stop using google/facebook services for logging in for everything.

If there are any suggestions you would like to share with me, I am not available on social media 😀 I’ll set up a point of contact that I feel comfortable with soon and will let you know here on the blog.

Also, you might have my number, call me. We can have a real-life chat.