Unplug

When was the last time you TRULY unplugged?

No internet, no phone, no streaming TV? Was it by choice? How long was it for, a few hours? A week? A month? What did it feel like at each stage? Did you feel the phantom buzz of a notification in your pocket even when your phone wasn’t there?

Does unplugging, or the thought of unplugging, bring feelings of anxiety? When you consider doing this, do  you think of all of the reasons you CAN’T unplug? Maybe it is work related, or fear of missing a life-threatening notification, of missing an important event. It can be wild to imagine that we were ever able to manage all of these things WITHOUT being plugged in, and that in fact, in many ways, being unplugged kept us MORE connected than we are today. 

We live in a time where information is coming at us ALL the time without reprieve. Surprisingly, this is nothing new. There is a massive amount of signals being sent by nature to us all the time, and it is through communicating with this information that we have lived to this point. Why is it NOW that we often feel so overstimulated? Why have we become so obsessed with riding the carousel of checking text-then email-then social media- the news- then shopping and back around again? For those of us who enjoyed reading pre-internet, why is it so hard to read at all - or at least just one book at a time?

The sheer frequency -literal and figurative - of the digital signals we receive shift our nervous systems in such a way that the very thing that we need most sometimes - to unplug - feels uncomfortable, undesirable, unsafe and may be even impossible. This form of connection is something we have become dependent on, even though we existed for a far longer time without these technologies than with them. Dopamine serves a very compelling purpose in our lives, and we were never meant to be on an IV drip of it. Breaks are necessary. 

​​in this image we see a human in nature, who has been attempting to be unplugged. They ahve "cracked" while being unplugged. They are seeking the level of stimulation they find while plugged in, and are so desperate in their craving,  that rather than sit with the nature all around them, they are sticking their tongue in a light socket. They do not realize that this will likely not serve them.

“Unplug” is asking us to sit and consider our relationship with technology. “Unplug” invites us to shake up our digital habits and notice how it feels. What comes up when we create that space? Are we enduring until we can plug back in,  or do we allow ourselves to relax and be present with the details happening all around us?

Questions to consider:

What is lost and what is gained from being plugged in? Make a list.

DO I experience “withdrawal” when I unplug? What does that look like and what does that mean?

Experiments:

Leave your phone at home and walk with a camera. 

Leave your phone outside of your bedroom and greet the day with natural light rather than screenlight.

Go to an in person event and leave your phone outside. What is that like?

When you are taking selfies and group photos, notice if you are experiencing the sensual world around you, or if you are plugged into something different. Who are all of these pictures for? Is the moment representative of what is happening, or is a facsimile. 

Remember, nothing is binary, and being engaged with technology - being plugged in or not - is neither good nor bad, it just is. It is when we get so hypnotized that we cannot choose a relationship with it, when we become addicted, that there is a problem.