Going Dark
returning to nature
Digital detox
The internet is a chaotic place. It’s huge, bustling, and powerful. No single person can keep up with it – explore its vast frontiers and tame the land.
It’s a lot of work to exist on the internet. You could say it’s another life; people actually treat it as a second life. Every user has an identity on the internet, with the usual websites they visit creating a ‘neighborhood’ of sorts. If you’ve read my other posts, you already know the pains many users can take to spread their individual ‘empires’, as well as the dangers of the information ‘walls’ those empires can produce.
All in all, the internet is a mess of every sort of information you can imagine and more. This makes it easy for your life on the internet to gnaw at your physical existence, causing you to slowly fade away from reality and into the 24/7 commitment that the internet calls for.
I can go off talking about the perils of internet addiction. It’s cliché at this point. I’d like to explore the idea of going off the grid – a digital detox.
A virtual suicide, if I were to be dramatic.
Professor Steintrager mentioned going off the grid is one of his lectures concerning Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality Among Men. Rousseau calls us back to nature, our former barbarian selves, and away from the innovations of man. A digital detox, to paraphrase Professor Steintrager, is the modern day method of returning to the state of nature as described by Rousseau.
To go off the grid is to close the gate to the internet. People do this for a variety of reasons, ranging from internet addictions, lack of focus, or just for a change of perspective. In this context, I see it as the abolishment of those idle activities that Rousseau detests. What good does scrolling through a blog do for the preservation of society? Does a ‘like’ every save anyone?
In the end the internet is one marvelous piece of human innovation.
It will define our time for generations to come. But the fact of the matter is that we have survived thousands of years as a species without the internet. It’s a fiction! Vanity! Unplug the internet, and all of that ‘information’ is gone. What is the point of building an internet empire when it will inevitably dissolve as a fad? At the end of the day, it’s all just one’s and zero’s, on and off, electricity and light bouncing through fiber optic wire. Logically, why should anyone participate as an internet user when there is no tangible benefit?
Vanity isn’t the only reason why people choose to go dark. Digital media, as I talked about in my previous post, is a potent hallucinogen, creating ‘facts’ out of nothing and making reality disappear.
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What should I believe in? Who is right?
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The aggressive nature of digital news media (and users in general), to shove their opinions down your throat can be overwhelming. And it goes beyond the news; advertisements, entertainment, even educationals sources – they all want your views, your clicks, because that is how they make money! Your interaction with their website is what gets companies to pay for advertisements on their website. Thus your attention is always being yanked. It’s overwhelming.
Taking a step back and considering the stress and risks a dedicated internet poses, it becomes more evident why people choose to go dark.
My daily life on the internet consists being bombarded by so many different facts from a plethora of media sources.
Turning off the lights
Yes, it seems to be a frightening idea, like going to sleep without your nightlight.
But in the big picture, is it really that big of a deal?
To go back to nature can yield to clearer thinking away from the distractions of human innovations. Looking at figures such as Henry Thoreau, ideas can better manifest themselves in front of a tree than in front of a wall.
And to think this is simply a digital detox! I’m not even talking about giving away the comfort of shelter or the amenities of civilized society. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal, it shouldn’t be that hard, but it is! If it were easy, then it would be a commonplace, but it’s not. What’s wrong with us?
From my experience, I’ve grown over dependent on technology, with my peers following suit. We have followers to provide personal gratification, messaging apps to bring social satisfaction, digital calendars, online news, and so many more excuses to remain digital. We refuse to simply rip the band-aid off.
My solution: Cut yourself off from the internet piece by piece. I’ve resigned from time-wasting sites such as Facebook and Tumblr. I also went on a complete social media detox for several days, allowing me to come back with more control (although I’ll admit that I’m still wasting time on Instagram). I highly encourage, at the very least, a diet from toxic sites on the internet. It’s temporary, but effective. We all need a break from the acidic political environment known as Twitter.
Turning off the lights – going dark – will allow us all to reevaluate our priorities in our daily lives. Should we worry about that selfie? Or should we take a moment and realise that there are so many people out there who are actually suffering.
Why are you still here? Get off my blog and go outside and that whole cliché. Go for a cleansing stroll and buy me some boba while you’re at it. I don’t live that far from campus anyway.
Because boba totally is not a human invention nor a waste of time. It is essential to the fabric of our being.
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Oh, and I almost forgot:
MEMENTO MORI