We used to be human being
The more time you use social media, the less time you spend communicating with people face-to-face. This is why people who use social media a lot are much more likely to be lonely and sad.
I’m having a big question and lots of whys in my head since I join college 3 years ago. The problem is why everybody in my campus has mental illness, overthinking, or anxiety (most). How? How? How? Are running to and fro in my head for these 3 years and I just assumed that they’re just on social media all the time and being forgotten that they’re human, not tech’s slave.
Then I found this book by Cal Newport called Digital Minimalism while reading a story on Medium. I bought it directly after reading that story.
In the introduction chapter, I already found out that why they’re having anxiety and why we can not be far from our phone. The answer is because social media has the psychological effects and by looking at your friends’ lives just make us more depressed.
Digital Minimalism is not a book that tells us to quit using technology or to uninstall every social media apps on our phones. But the book is talking about how we manage internet use as minimalist as possible. I’ll tell you what got from Digital Minimalism:
- Use social media like a professional.
If you tell me “my job depends on social media” then you are on same boat as me, that’s why Cal tells us to use it like a pro. I make two account on Instagram, the one is for my works that is open for public and to upload my writing content. The other one is for my personal life that just follow football accounts and close friends. Divided your account into two can help you manage what’s important and what’s not. You know what account that makes you productive and what account that tells you what are your close friends doing. So, you will not on social media all the time, instead you know exactly what time you have to use it.
2. Use dumb phone
Social media really made our life depends on mobile phone. You can bring it with you, put in your pocket, and give you access to everything you want just in one click. That’s why people are willing to spend much money just to buy new iPhone or gaming smartphones. Having a technology that can give you whatever you one in one device is not giving you good thing, instead it’s dangerous for you. I have many friends in college who didn’t even own a laptop but they own an iPhone whereas we are on our final year that push us to make thesis if we want to be graduated. After I read this book, my conclusion is that the more time you’re on social media the more you won’t understand the difference between needs and desire.
3. A solitude that can save your life
This book teaches me how important of spending time alone. Solitude is really about what’s happening in your brain. You use solitude when you’re alone with your own thoughts and you are not affected by input from other minds like tech, gadget, people, or even music. Solitude can make you find new ideas, calmer, understand better, and close to other people. But in this generation, young people use internet all the time. Study showed that gen Z spend times media on an average of 9 hours a day. This cause the solitude deprivation and lot of problem cause by it such as anxiety, don’t know yourself, changing mood, overthinking, and many other problem that can make you need help with your mental health.
I know some people who spend lot of their times playing smartphones. The people are either in my gangs, the friends I know, or just ordinary class-mate. I watch ’em, observe ’em, and now I understand why they act strange and having trouble of thinking. They easily get angry, offended, neglected, and their mood is uncontrollable.
I felt big changes too before and after I manage my time playing with smartphones. Two years ago, my screen time is always on average of 7–8 hours a day and that’s when I had emotionally unstable and was such a temperament person. Then I realised that this can be last for ever, I need changes. I went to doctor, read lot books, start journaling, writing, etc. Until now my screen time down to just 2 hours a day and I can feel myself more, understand more, find what my interest and working on it.
When I minimalized my digital life, I know myself deeper and that’s where I found what career path I wanna choose for my future. I read books a lot and influence my close friends to also read books and leave social media life. I help others to higher their spirit in go to college and influence them to start reading and stop partying.
Still, I’m just doing my best. People who have minds and want to have improvement in their life listen what I told ’em and people who still want to enjoy their lives and not start thinking for the future yet still with their gadgets posting stupid photos with dumb songs on their insta story or follow the news about celebrities having an affair.
