Digital Detox
After reading this week’s material, I suddenly realized that I had spent so much time on electronic devices during the entire year of quarantine. Before quarantine, I would spend time going to class every day and would participate in activities after school. I would spend a short amount of time on my electronic devices before going to bed, and it did not interfere with my daily routine. However, after quarantine, I lost the opportunity to interact with others and was rarely able to go out and participate in activities. The stress of life forced me to shift my focus to the internet. I became more addicted to gaming and more dependent on my online friends. I think the InternetInternet helped me in the first place because it ensured that I was able to have regular contact with society. And in my busy life, the internet also made me escape from my depressing environment and gave me a break. However, the damage that the internet has done to me is also inevitable. Since we don’t always get timely and positive feedback on the internet, I realized that I was always in a very stressful emotional state during the long hours of using the internet. And this causes me to feel anxious from time to time after leaving my phone and computer, forcing me to spend a lot of time refreshing the content of social media apps. And after leaving the InternetInternet, I found myself struggling to find interest and losing motivation to hang out with friends. On top of that, I found that my electronic devices had a significant impact on my body. For example, my eyesight is significantly worse than it was a year ago, and I have also developed health issues such as insomnia.
I think the best way to deal with this situation is to fix the amount of time I use my electronic devices. For example, I am currently trying to stop using any electronic devices after 11:00 pm. The advantage of doing this is that it forces me to go to bed in time, rather than to give myself an excuse to keep searching aimlessly for games or videos on the internet. On top of that, I’ve tried to start reconnecting with my friends as much as possible. We spend time together at home every week cooking a meal and talking about what happened during the week. I’ve found that meeting people face-to-face helped me feel more secure and not have the anxiety I felt when I relied on the internet chat.
