Time to Disconnect

heisenberg

Earl Grey

Worth a watch. :)
 

Atlantis

Well Known GateFan
I think it's extremely difficult to cut yourself out of the internet because we are accustomed to keep ourselves occupied. I can see why some people struggle with social skills (myself included) Unless if you become someone like Tarzan I think it's really a challenge and you would miss out on a number of things. Youtube has been the greatest social media ever. I have discovered more music through this wonderful platform than I did during my the first 20 years of my life. Now, things have slowed down I find myself going out more like for instance going out to comiccons and meeting the stargate crew in November and competing in sports events which has opened my eyes that maybe I am missing out in the real world.
 

heisenberg

Earl Grey
Was interesting to listen to. Are you planning on giving this a go?
Yeah, why not but like Chevron said, it would be very hard. With us who are born with the internet, our brain has become sort of hard wired to go on it. It's like coming out smoking. It's very difficult to manage. I have strategies to quit the internet, but I wouldn't be able to pay my bills then, but the way we can quit the social media platforms is to start showing disinterest in stuff you used to enjoy and start to enjoy what normal people enjoy.
 

Lord Ba'al

Well Known GateFan
There's a whole wide world of non internet things out there for you to enjoy. Part of the challenge might be to find someone to share those things with you. But connections you make would likely be more meaningful.
 
No need to become a Luddite these days. There's nothing wrong with using modern tech to make one's life easier. As it is the world is changing and one has to go along with it or one suffers. For instance, I pay my bills online. It's incredibly easy and I'm set up for autopay on almost all of them. Just a few years ago I would have to sit down and hand write checks, then put them in an envelope, put a stamp on them and mail them. It was a hassle but there was no other choice. Now the Internet makes dealing with that stuff much, much easier.

Another story: Last night I had a dinner party and a guest told me how several of the banks she goes to are now automated and un-staffed. It's different than an average ATM as when you go inside the bank you talk to someone live on screen who answers your questions and handles your transactions. If there's a transaction that the remote teller can't handle you have to go to a bank location (downtown) where they have people staffed. But so far my friend hasn't had to use an in-person teller.

So that's basically how the world is going and you aren't going to be able to opt out. Living in a hut in the outback isn't going to change the rest of the world. It's only going to give you a brief reprieve from the white noise of modern life but you will eventually have to come out and rejoin the world at some point.

And really it's not that bad. A lot of the stress and pressure and angst that we think is caused by the Internet is really our own fault. Case in point, I am completely baffled why people are so obsessed with Facebook. I have never had it and don't suffer any of the mental maladies that everyone I know who uses Fakebook does. I roll my eyes whenever I hear someone whining about the passive-aggressive arguments they get in on FB. How lame. One can have a fulfilling social life without Fakebook or Instagram or any of that junk.

Conversely, there's nothing wrong with using apps that add quality to your life. If you want to clear your head and learn to relax there are apps like Head Space which many people find to be great tools in helping them maintain a meditation schedule. And that's just one example of a good use of the Internet. Really it all boils down to the choices you make when using it.

Use technology and the Internet wisely, not mindlessly. If you find yourself swiping and scrolling your phone for hours and hours each day then you're clearly not using technology correctly. You're letting it use you. You're being intellectually lazy. Take hold of your life. You don't have to disappear into the desert to escape the angst and tedium "caused" by the Internet and modern technology. You just have to realize that you're the gatekeeper of your life. You choose what you allow into your world. Simple as that.
 

Lord Ba'al

Well Known GateFan
Couldn't agree more. These days you have to be highly selective in regard to what things you let into your life. Gatefans for example is fine for me. I got in early on Facebook, before it became the massive whatever it is that it is now. Then I suddenly started getting a lot of friend requests from people in Asia and I started to get annoyed with it. Then not long after they changed their policies. That was the end of Facebook for me. I know it has its uses but I don't want any part of it. I do have Twitter and I check it daily and when I'm behind my laptop, which is most of the time when I'm home, I check it whenever I notice there are new tweets in my feed indicated by the number on the browser tab. I don't follow a lot and I don't get followed a lot but that's fine for me. A while back I unfollowed a lot of accounts/people that I was following before and I'm not missing it. I only really still follow a few people who I consider friends (most of them don't tweet a lot) and I've started following people who will hopefully inspire me. I was following a few gaming journalism accounts but I had to stop that. Every time I came home from work there was about a hundred new tweets to go through which turned out to just be wasting a lot of my time. It made it hard to notice the things that I did find interesting. On top of that, since my computer was (and is) rather outdated, it actually couldn't quite cope with all those tweets, it would sometimes just shutdown from overload and if not that most of the time it would be unusuable for 5 to 10 minutes because the computer was overwhelmed. Maybe that was my luck because it forced me to change things in this regard. I had to stop my computer from being overwhelmed and in the process of doing so I succeeded in stopping myself from being overwhelmed. It turns out I like it a lot better this way. Far less stressful.
 

Lord Ba'al

Well Known GateFan
Couldn't agree more. These days you have to be highly selective in regard to what things you let into your life. Gatefans for example is fine for me. I got in early on Facebook, before it became the massive whatever it is that it is now. Then I suddenly started getting a lot of friend requests from people in Asia and I started to get annoyed with it. Then not long after they changed their policies. That was the end of Facebook for me. I know it has its uses but I don't want any part of it. I do have Twitter and I check it daily and when I'm behind my laptop, which is most of the time when I'm home, I check it whenever I notice there are new tweets in my feed indicated by the number on the browser tab. I don't follow a lot and I don't get followed a lot but that's fine for me. A while back I unfollowed a lot of accounts/people that I was following before and I'm not missing it. I only really still follow a few people who I consider friends (most of them don't tweet a lot) and I've started following people who will hopefully inspire me. I was following a few gaming journalism accounts but I had to stop that. Every time I came home from work there was about a hundred new tweets to go through which turned out to just be wasting a lot of my time. It made it hard to notice the things that I did find interesting. On top of that, since my computer was (and is) rather outdated, it actually couldn't quite cope with all those tweets, it would sometimes just shutdown from overload and if not that most of the time it would be unusuable for 5 to 10 minutes because the computer was overwhelmed. Maybe that was my luck because it forced me to change things in this regard. I had to stop my computer from being overwhelmed and in the process of doing so I succeeded in stopping myself from being overwhelmed. It turns out I like it a lot better this way. Far less stressful.

Lol! I wrote that before going to bed and now I wake up and find 136 tweets in my feed. Someone I recently followed obviously needs to be unfollowed. I'll figure out the culprit later when I have time.

Edit: 152 now I've come home.
 
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Lord Ba'al

Well Known GateFan
Lol! I wrote that before going to bed and now I wake up and find 136 tweets in my feed. Someone I recently followed obviously needs to be unfollowed. I'll figure out the culprit later when I have time.

Edit: 152 now I've come home.

Lol! I just went through the tweets and found that 105 of those were from The Orville! I'll be unfollowing that. I hate it when accounts just retweet lots of shit from other accounts instead of posting meaningful stuff themselves. Many of the remaining 47 tweets were from Seth MacFarlane. I think I'll have to unfollow him as well.
 
Lol! I just went through the tweets and found that 105 of those were from The Orville! I'll be unfollowing that. I hate it when accounts just retweet lots of shit from other accounts instead of posting meaningful stuff themselves. Many of the remaining 47 tweets were from Seth MacFarlane. I think I'll have to unfollow him as well.

Better yet, just "unfollow" Twitter completely. You don't need that shit. Trust me, your life gets calmer and more serene the more you cut out such nonsense. Instead of wasting time reading your Twitter feed you could be spending more time with your SO or your cat(s) or you could brush up on your Mandarin for when you take that well-deserved vacation to China next year. The possibilities of what to do with your Twitter-free time are endless! :snowman:
 

Lord Ba'al

Well Known GateFan
Better yet, just "unfollow" Twitter completely. You don't need that shit. Trust me, your life gets calmer and more serene the more you cut out such nonsense. Instead of wasting time reading your Twitter feed you could be spending more time with your SO or your cat(s) or you could brush up on your Mandarin for when you take that well-deserved vacation to China next year. The possibilities of what to do with your Twitter-free time are endless! :snowman:

Naw. Twitter is the only way I use to have some level of access to the outside world. I intentionally don't follow the news. But important things tend to find their way into my Twitter timeline. Then I can still choose to ignore them. I keep the timeline quiet. It's not like there's a lot of things on it. Plus sometimes you find little gems in it. Pieces of interesting information, technologies, jokes, whatever. I have plenty of time left to waste besides Twitter.
 

Lord Ba'al

Well Known GateFan
No I avoid politics in general.
 

Lord Ba'al

Well Known GateFan
How odd. I pictured you as a bra burner agitating for revolution on a daily basis. You mean to tell me you've never burned anyone in effigy? How disappointing. I feel cheated. :(

Such is life.
 
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