Screenless Sundays

By Kaizer Majid.  

It’s 9pm on a Wednesday and I have three hours to hand over this article to my editor. On one hand, I’m doing my research and on the other, I’m browsing Twitter looking for updates on the country’s situation, and before the clock strikes 12, I need to submit this very article. But instead, I focus mostly on my phone and laptop. Our lives are oversaturated by digital screens. The internet is the best invention since sliced bread.

With its latest twist on an ancient religious practice, Digital Shabbat – also known as a Digital Detox – is attracting the notice of millennials and others who are worn out trying to keep up with ever-changing trends in a fast-paced world.

Waking up in the morning, the one thing I always do is grab my phone. This was when I knew I was addicted to my phone, and this was a problem. So, I decided to do a little research on this and the term Digital Shabbat came up.

I myself have had times where falling asleep at night was difficult and I understood that the use of a screen was the main cause. The phone’s light at night is not natural at all and this can affect your sleep as well. Try to get into the concept of nights free of tech; keep your screens away, which ensures a couple of hours without an unnatural light staring at your face. Taking a break from your digital screens, or even uninstalling SM apps, gives you free time away from the jitters of the world that keep you restless, bemused, and irritated. 

So, switch off your devices, take a deep breath and exhale. With that exhaled breath the hullaballoo of the week goes off with it.

Most millennials are addicted to their phone because of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), another reason people tend to be glued to SM. This is the idea that your friends are having a better time and experiences than you are. This refers to anything from a party with friends to a work promotion you were so eagerly looking forward to, but it always entails a sense of powerlessness that you are missing out on.

So, I asked some of my friends who have experienced this, only one – Humaira – replied. She was sitting for her O/Ls. Humaira said, “I felt like I didn’t need to constantly be anxious, which I feel most of the time when I see social media posts etc. I read a lot after my studies as well and I didn’t use many devices because I genuinely felt happier and relaxed than using the mobile would have given me. It reduced my anxiety a lot.” She also added, “I also didn’t procrastinate as much.” We all know what procrastination does to us.

The Shabbat offers us a break from reality. It’s a gift from us to us, this allows us to keep aside our work and contemplate and find what really makes us happy.

You could try it out yourself. Take a Sunday off this week, and start by switching off your phone, putting away your laptop or computer, and staying away from the TV or any type of digital screen. That means no phone, no computer, no Netflix, and no Spotify (you probably could use a transistor radio). What would you do next? Studies say we are more creative when we are bored. Why? 

According to experts’ boredom stimulates a creative buzz within you, as our minds are always searching for stimuli. 

What’s ironic is that we normally take a break by watching a video or two, scrolling through Instagram and sharing a few memes when we are on a break. Do you really think this helps your brain relax?

Simply switch off your phone every Friday night and switch it on four hours later; this is a technological diet you could definitely carry out.

One of the reasons the new generation feels very tired and drained all the time is that they spend more time on the phone than sleeping (things brown parents would say), but it’s true.

After glancing through a few articles urging us to attempt a Digital Shabbat, the cardinal number on how much we are engrossed by our phones and laptops is staggering.

Studies have shown that we check our phones around 70 times a day and spend six hours on our phones. And adding up all these numbers by the end of the week gives you a staggering realization that you check your phone around 500 times, 42 hours week, and the sad part being we don’t get paid for the extra effort your brain goes to process the information while you are stuck to your screens.

This is an opportunity to break free from this void where we are continuously distracted from our emotions by eternally scrolling from one page to the next. These small steps wouldn’t make something great, but they are like tiny breaks from the outside world which help you with your struggle of the week ahead. Your fear of missing out will be for nothing and would naturally change to JOYO – Joy Of Missing Out. Moral of the story, listen to your parents and get off the phone. 

So, here’s to scrolling less and living more. 

Kaizer Majeed is a 26-year-old Rotaractor who works as an Engineer in the Solar Industry for the last 11/2 years and who is also into content writing and makes stop motion videos as a hobby.