Off the Grid
Sunday the 29 of November was a very special day for me because I spent 6 hours without my smartphone, without internet and social media. It was an interesting experience which took me out from my comfort zone.
I should say that the first thing that I usually do when I get up is take a smartphone and start to check all my letters on email and chats on messengers that I got during the night. After that I usually do not put away my phone and open social media to watch stories on Instagram or read some posts on Facebook. As a result, I spend my first 30 minutes of the day in a virtual world.
Yesterday morning was different. When I got up on Sunday, I realized that it is time to start my challenge without a smartphone and I should do something alternative. So, after waking up I went straight to the bathroom, then made my morning routine: brush my teeth, take a shower and cook breakfast. It was about 9 a.m. and I faced the problem that I do not know what to do next because usually after breakfast I can be stuck in my smartphone for a few hours especially on the weekend. The first good idea that came to my mind was to clean the apartment because it was quite untidy and parallelly I can do laundry, so I can have clean clothes when I finish cleaning the house. I finished cleaning around at 10 a.m. Honestly, at this time I wanted so much to take my phone, check messages and waste some time on social media.
Still I pulled myself together and decided to do my assignment for my classes. I should say that I made my homework faster and easier than usual as I realized later it was because my smartphone did not disturb me every five minutes with push-messages. When I was done with my assignments it was time to go to Commons to grab some food for lunch. Normally on my way to Commons I listen to music but this time was special because I was not able to use my phone at that time. So, I was walking without headphones and listening to the wind and bird chirping.
On the way to Commons I felt that I was missing something and checked if I had a phone in my pockets. Every time I checked it, I remembered about the challenge that I have accepted.
Normally I do a workout in 45 minutes after lunch. As I had more time that day, I decided to do more rounds of excercises. Thanks to the absence of my phone I had a half hour longer workout yesterday. Consequently, my muscles are sore today. After that I still had a little free time until the end of my challenge so I started to read the book that I wanted to start one month ago.
To summarize, it was pretty hard for me to survive without a phone and Internet, especially the first hours were the hardest because I didn’t really understand what I needed and what I could do instead of using my smartphone. Nevertheless, I noticed a lot of positive moments in my Internet isolation: I have got a ton of free time which I can spend in a useful way; I did things that I would avoid if I had access to Internet such as cleaning the house or reading a book; I was not disturbed when I needed concentration and focus; Messages that I get every five minutes are not so important and sometimes even worthless. Actually, I made a conclusion for myself that I can easily spend less time with my phone and do more useful things. I am sure that real life is much more important than virtual life so I am going to put all my effort into enjoying real life for maximum.
