escaping the tyranny of the screen¶
Like many users of the internet I too am a victim of the attention-span-destroying things that live on the Internet. My attention span is the worst it has ever been and I think it will be the highest it will ever be. This is not a very happy thought. This has also started affecting my work and other reading skills.
Last year was an exercise is cutting out the crap when it comes to digital presence etc.
Twitter and Instagram¶
During the beginning of last year I took a break. Hindsight tells me that this was a GREAT decision. I think a part of the reason for this was the fact that I was not looking at a screen all the time. The other part is definitely the fact that I was starting at mountains most of the time :)))) (but we shall not dwell on that for too long). I also stopped logging into my Twitter account since then.
After returning from the hills in June, I resumed the normal life of an office-going person in their late 20s that does not get to see mountains as often as they would like. The urge to use twitter was never there after the first week of Jan. However, I still had another major addiction to kill i.e. Instagram.
Quitting instagram took some work. A lot of social/community/family things happen on instagram and being off of it means that you have to get distanced from certain types of social activities. However I was always aware of how much time I am spending on the app. On some days it was upwards of 3 hours; just mindlessly scrolling reels. This felt too much of a price to pay for keeping in touch with my friends and cousins. This led me to explore what in touch really means.
Most of my interactions on instagram was passive. I would passively interact with someone; like their reel etc etc. This is not keeping in touch. This is barely keeping in touch. As for my cousins and family and friends, I have started calling them instead. This is much better than a passive like on their hazy photo at some random party etc etc.
I decided to permanently disable my instagram in December 2025. This was slightly hard initially, but I replaced it with books. This helped a LOT. I find that cold-turkey works the best for me in some cases.
Things have gotten better since then.
Next up. Whatsapp.
Whatsapp¶
My SLA for responding to whatsapp texts in less than 1 minute. This SLA (service level agreement) is with myself (as we will keep witnessing, I am the root-cause of a lot of my problems). This is just a virtue (vice) of the fact that I am chronically online. I am more online than my fucking laptop is. UGGG!!
Anyway, I decided that the correct thing to do was to completely disable whatsapp notifications (for chats; calls are urgent). For me the biggest problem is the fact that I need a lot of time to regain focus after I have lost it. Disabling notifications has been great. I have noticed that things are not as bad as I had thought they would be.
I have told most of my friends that if I do not respond then they can call me directly.
What has improved ?¶
I have slowed down as a person. For good reason. I read things more thoughtfully and I can engage with it better.
I am not looking a quick reply so that I can get it over with. Instead I take the time and reply sincerely, which is often a wall of text. :)
My attention span is still recovering. This is a slow fibre. Kinda like ligaments and tendons. I can see slight improvements though. The bar is not too high, but it's what it's.
I used to feel that I would fail to show up for friends and family if I am not available all the time. This could not be more false. My delayed responses have not caused a lot of trouble. No houses have burnt down; no emergencies have been missed. It is peaceful knowing that I do not have to keep checking my phone and that my friends will just call me when needed. It is ike how having a good alerting system keeps you from looking at the dashboard continuously.
This is an email; not a DM anymore. :P
Having more time and reading a bunch¶
This should NOT be surprising but as it turns out, not watching reels for 3 hours; means that you have 3 hours to do other stuff.
I have been reading a bunch these days. Mostly technical things and re-reading some old books.
This experiment is going surprisingly well.
Next up: -> ditching my phone -> living in the mountains.
I plan to keep doing this. :)