We live in a world where technology is a big part of our everyday life.
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We use our computers, laptops, phones, Internet, TV not only on daily basis, but multiple times a day. In fact, some people spend hours in front of the screen. I'm not talking about people who's job requires working on a computer, but people who spend their free time browsing through the never ending black hole of Internet and Social media.
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I have to be honest and say that I am one of those people who are spending a lot of time in front of their laptop and on their phone. I rarely watch TV and I don't follow news which I'm quite happy about. But I do spend a lot of time on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and here on Steemit.
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Digital and Social media detox
Computer/Laptop/Phone
Here I would recommend deleting all the unnecessary and irrelevant documents/files/pictures/music/apps. I went through all the photos on my laptop and phone. I'm also going through my music folder which takes me a while - I just want to keep songs that I really love to listen. Organizing is also an important step, you can organize music into folders by artists, photos into folders by years, apps into folders by category...
Email subscriptions
Do you have tons of junk emails cluttering your inbox? Unsubscribe from anything that is not useful to you so you don't have to stress yourself trying to find what's important and keep your inbox on point.
Youtube
4-5 years ago I really got into Youtube, I was subscribed to so many channels and spent hours watching all kinds of videos. In the last year or two, I became a lot more picky to which channels I'm subscribed to. Instead of tons of beauty and makeup videos that were popping on my timeline, now I have a few chosen people that are mainly focused on travel, minimalism, mindfulness... I find myself spending less time clicking on every recommended video until I end up watching cute babies and animals, haha.
Social media used my majority of my friends and family, so it's a nice way to stay in touch, especially with relatives that I don't see that often. If there's anyone who gives you any kind of negative feeling when you come across their post - unfriend or unfollow them. I have unfollowed some of my friends and family members so I don't see their posts at all but they are still on my friends list. :)
My favorite and probably my biggest time waster! I love browsing through Instagram, it's a great source of inspiration for me especially now that I got more interested in photography. Again, if there's anyone who's posts make you feel bad, down, jealous or you're just not interested at all about what they're posting - unfollow them. With that being said, I think it's time for me to go through my Instagram and do a little bit of a clear out.
Blogs
I used to have a lot of blogs bookmarked on my laptop that I would check out every day. Then I started deleting them until I was left with just a few of my favorites that I check every now and them. Make sure the blogs you're always going back to are inspiring, helpful and useful for you and your lifestyle.
Steemit
How could I write this post without mentioning Steemit? :) Here I try to keep the same rule - follow people who inspire you and people who's posts you love to read and themes you're interested in. This way I can keep on track with my favorite people and posts, without loosing them in a tons of stuff I'm not even interested to read.
Other Social media
Pretty much the same "rule" can be implemented on any other Social media - Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest... I deleted Snapchat from my phone, Twitter might be gone too because I never use it. Pinterest I still absolutely love but I don't spend so much time on it like I used to.
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Do you ever think about how much of our lives we share on Social media platforms, blogs...? How important it became to be present online? That before we experience something we feel the urge to document it in digital form so we can share it online? How hard it became to unplug and ONLY be present in the moment? And how hard it is to keep a balance?