Two weeks ago I had made a post that I would be doing a Digital Detox for the second time.
The results?
I would say it was partly successful and partly unsuccessful because I couldn't follow some of the things I had initially planned to.
Out of all the things, Instagram and Facebook were the things that were draining majority of my time and I had planned to abandon them completely for two weeks and also uninstall those apps.
Out of the two, I did uninstall FB app but I ended up logging in from my computer once in between to check a friend's birthday. Should I call it as failure? I don't think so.
I had deactivated my Instagram account but sadly couldn't delete the app altogether since my company page was also logged in on my phone. This ended up in me checking instagram through the company page and another profile which I had made as a backup. So, this was an utter failure.
I had planned to utilize my time in doing some productive things out of which I could follow the meditation and sleeping early regularly. The other things included learning guitar which I did for a few days and then stopped it and some others I couldn't follow.
However, I have been reading a lot in this time (which wasn't planned in the detox) and got myself into cognitive overload yet again. For a month or so, I'll be staying away from reading. In place of that I'll be focusing more on digital marketing basic course and learning guitar.
Self-discipline is really challenging to cultivate but giving up is never an option if you want to rise above mediocre. Once we cultivate it, we can apply it to any area of our lives. That's what keeps me motivated to do this.
What I have learned from the experience of 2.0 is we cannot completely get rid of all dopamine inducing activities all of a sudden. The brain is designed to provide rewards for the activities that help us survive and pass on our genes.
What we can do is replace fake productive activities like scrolling the feed endlessly with some healthy and productive ones like learning the guitar. Both provide the same kind of dopamine rush. It's just effortless in scrolling the feed and our brain always tends to take the easiest path.
I'll attempt Digital Detox 3.0 sometime again. As they say, third time's the charm.
Have you ever attempted to do digital detox and have been successful?
Would love to hear your story and also, if any suggestions/recommendations in the comments.
Cheers!