Week 2- Hard Truths/How’d I Get Here?

Weekly Digital Detox Reflections

A picture I took somewhere in South Carolina

Hello again! I hope you all have had a great week. I wanted to know; is anyone who may be reading this is also doing any sort of digital detox? If so, how is it going? Any tips or tricks you can give the rest of us? I am still in the beginning stages of becoming a digital minimalist and would love to hear from others on how they have fared in detaching from digital technology. If you or anyone you know would like to share their experiences, comment here and share this post with someone you know who could give us some insight. I’m here to learn!

For anyone new, here is a quick summary of my current digital detox schedule. Every evening during the week, when I am home from work I treat my smartphone like a landline. I leave it in one spot. I spend one day a week commuting and working in complete silence. No streaming or radio use. Just me and my thoughts. The weekends are like weekday evenings where the phone stays in one place. Or at least that is the idea. And then here, each Thursday I share the thoughts I’ve been dwelling on during my detoxes. So let’s get to it. This week I thought I would share why I choose to detox, what led to this routine, and why I think it is worth practicing.

Hi, I’m Daniel, and I’m a digital dependent.

Last week I went on a bit of a rant about parents who couldn’t look away from their phones even when at a park with their children. I stand by everything I said, however, I do not want to come across as if I am any better than these people. I am not. Though I am putting in effort, I am still overwhelmingly dependent on digital technology. In some ways I could argue that I am worse. Many people have not acknowledged any problems with their digital habits. I have, yet I continue to allow myself to be controlled by this technology. Some of this is out of my control. Most of it is not.

At work, I am required use what we call a PRC all day long. It’s a miniature tablet that controls every aspect of my job. That’s the part that is out of my control. Except for one detox day, I stream music, podcasts and audiobooks the entire time I’m working. My excuse for this is that the radio stations available to me are awful. I have a vocabulary app on my phone which notifies me twice a day with a new word to learn. I could reduce it to once a day or delete the app but I haven’t. Leaning new words is a good thing, right? I use my banking app because it’s more convenient than driving to the bank. I use the Sam’s Club app to scan items as I go to avoid long check-out lines. I use the Groupme app every day to talk to my friends from college. I use my phone for personal email and work emails. I check the scores of Braves games, soccer games, and NBA games often during the seasons. I use my phone to shop on Amazon. I could go on…

My point is, I have a lot of work to do to become a digital minimalist. I no longer use social media, which has been extremely helpful. But I do not want to mislead anyone. I am incorporating a digital detox routine into my life because I am dependent on the technology. Not because I think it’s cool or makes me better than anyone. With these reflections, I plan to share my struggles, progress and to encourage. Not judge others or pretend to have this all figured out. All I can do is explain how I arrived at the point where I deemed a digital detox necessary and try to help anyone I can as I go.

What led me to consider detaching from digital technology?

This past week during my detox sessions, I thought about what prompted all of this. My thoughts went back all the way to 2015 when the 2016 general election cycle was already underway here in the United States. Back then, I was a regular user of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. I thought these things were cool and perfectly normal. Then the election of 2016 came around and through all of that turmoil I had a moment of clarity where I realized we would all be way less worked up about our politics if we stayed off of Facebook and Twitter. That’s when my use of Facebook began to diminish. By the time the 2020 election cycle came around I was even further convinced social media was destroying our political system by driving us further apart.

The other set of events that made me question my addiction to social media were the string of violent deaths of African Americans at the hands of police and all of the protesting and controversies that followed. Without going into my opinions on those things and getting into all the details, I once again just took a step back from social media and the news to think through these events and concluded that these things did little good if any to help us heal from those issues. I guess the use of social media did some good in exposing some bad cops for who they were. And that was valuable. But Americans spewing their uninformed and thoughtless opinions at each other via all forms of social media did immense harm and I believe drove our country further apart.

The next and largest determining factor that led me to seek digital detoxing was the Covid-19 fiasco. I will only speak about the U.S. in saying that I think we, as a whole, handled almost every aspect of the pandemic terribly. The biggest and most horrific revelation through the pandemic was how easy it was for local/federal governments and their corporate counterparts to control what we did and did not know about the virus itself and the vaccines, which would have been federally mandated if they could have gotten way with that legally. It’s been well established that government cooperation with entities like Meta, Twitter, and Google was shady at best. And the ability to track me via my phone to see if I had been exposed to Covid-19 eroded the already vanishing trust I had that I was not being followed. By the time Covid-19 stretched into 2021, I was personally fed up with government and big tech corporations alike.

The Culminating of Things

In the midst of the pandemic, things began to change for me. I dove into Christian history and tradition through podcasts such as The Lord of Spirits, and The Symbolic World. As a protestant Christian, I already believed in angles, demons and an unseen realm around us. These Orthodox Christian resources helped to further develop my understanding. I began to comprehend that there were forces at work behind the internet, digital technology, and technology in general. And while God is ultimately using all of this for His glory, that doesn’t mean the forces behind these technologies are concerned with our well being. What they are using for evil, God will use for good, but given all that I have noticed, I cannot hep but see the evil for what it is. Which means, on some level, I am complicit in that evil when I use and engage with these technologies.

After becoming further aware of those unseen forces, I started to become more active on Substack. Shortly after this, my brother sent me a link to a Paul Kingsnoth essay, which led to me dig into his Substack, The Abby of Misrule. This is where I was smacked with his notion of The Machine. It has becoming my understanding that over centuries, The Machine has been progressing in its control of society through technological innovation. This is in fact, the purpose of The Machine. To control society through the technology we create (or that it wills us to create).

As I see it, demonic forces, enemies in the midst of Christ’s reign and rule before the end of this age, are empowering The Machine. The Machine, through normalization and extreme progress of digital technology is becoming embodied through digital technology. As we “progress” in the advancement of this technology, governments and corporations will continue to to integrate its uses into every aspect of daily life and we will reach a point where if you do not have a smartphone, a chip in your hand or head, you will simply not be able to participate in “normal” society. If you resist these things, resist the control, you will be free, but you’ll be on your own. Or hopefully with a couple other Luddites you happen to find.

My growing discontent with how social media has affected our society, social control through technology, combined with my new understanding of The Machine had me ready to get off the grid all together. Okay, I wasn’t actually ready to do that, but when I was then challenged to participate in a 30 Day Digital Detox, I jumped at the opportunity. My 30-Day Detox had a lasting impact which is what led me to start these weekly digits detox sessions and reflections.

Concluding Thoughts

The fact that I believe everything I just said about The Machine, and I still have all the bad digital habits I confessed is the reason I choose to continue to detox. I believe it is worth detoxing and working towards digital minimalism so that when it is time for you to personally decide to no longer “progress” with digital technology, the transition to a life without it or with less of it will be an easy one.

I hope everything I wrote about here makes senses and maybe strikes a chord with some readers. I encourage you to consider a digital detox of your own. If you choose to do so, please comment on this or any future reflections and let me know!

Scripture of the Week

Blessed is the man that endure the temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. James 1:12 KJV

Word of the Week

Sanguine-optimistic or positive, especially in a difficult or uncertain situation.

Why sanguine? It’s just a good word.

Song of the Week

“123” by Jess Glynn. This song has been on repeat for me lately. It’s a fun one!

Thank you for reading! I’ll be back next week. God Bless!