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Digital Detox and The Error of Substituting External Masters

"The very first thing that must be done is: create silence, bring about silence; God's Word cannot be heard, and if in order to be heard in the hullabaloo it must be shouted deafeningly with noisy instruments, then it is not God's Word; create silence! Ah, everything is noisy, and just as a strong drink is said to stir the blood, so everything in our day, even the most insignificant project, even the most empty communication, is designed merely to jolt the senses or to stir up the masses, the crowd, the public, noise! And man, this clever fellow, seems to have become sleepless in order to invent ever new instruments to increase noise, to spread noise and insignificance with the greatest possible haste and on the greatest possible scale. Yes, everything is soon turned upside down: communication is indeed soon brought to its lowest point with regard to meaning, and simultaneously the means of communication are indeed brought to their highest with regard to speedy and overall circulation; for what is publicized with such hot haste and, on the other hand, what has greater circulation than—rubbish! O, create silence!"
— 1851, Sören Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination (quoted in 2016, Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence, page 86)

YouTube is filling up with videos from different people and creators about their approaches to digital detoxing (with an emphasis on abstaining from social media). While the common theme shared among them is "get off of social media", the rest dealing with content, devices, frequency of use and changes in relation with themselves can differ a lot more.

I'd like to review two of the more interesting ones because of their intersectionality with other larger opportunities in personal development and contrasting external power vs internal power, with a nod to toxic positivity and productivity (the kind of which is all over LinkedIn).

Approach #1 : Substitution of Masters

https://youtu.be/9oRFgiL7Jj8?si=A0F21NjELblwKnfj

In the linked video is one person's approach to unplugging: take the subjective external BAD thing, and replace it with subjective external GOOD many many things. This is the toxic positivity and productivity approach because the approach continues the sense of "running from" the core inner self. In the video are several contradictions:

• "I'm Addicted to Being OFF my Phone" as a video title. This is the first suggestion of switching Masters while never actually freeing yourself.
• Once off the phone, filling that free time with and endless stream of hobbies and keep-busy contradicts her message of "do nothing, let yourself be bored". Filling time with busy busy busy is still serving an external master. If anything this isn't being bored, but building a board (of hobbies.)
  
• In the video she mentions that her hobby of knitting is "more calming for the nervous system having something to do with my hands". Sure. Changing activity focus and duration does that. Good brain tip. But swapping busy addiction with many additional hobbies is still running away from something deeper that would require none of it.
• Throughout the video are examples of a refusal to focus, to single-task. A second screen tether is dragged around to accompany the woman so that in the end she's just swapping phone screen for another screen.
  

Approach #2 : Within, not without

A healthier and more authentic alternative practice—I believe—would be based on detaching from so much external stimuli and distraction on the whole and instead simply radiate what you have within yourself outward with a deep focus. The below is a video with the same lead-by-example goals of digital and social media detox, but focuses more on the removal of the addictive devices/tethers to achieve a stillness:

https://youtu.be/bSorYHuY0V8?si=mCWrucOYdPsDfKFU

In this creator's method you'll notice he:

• Transitions from doing to not doing.
• Reduces digital device serving to favor basic tactile tools (pens/pencils and paper), but very few additions. There's no deluge of new hobbies/dependencies.
• Meditation, to reach his core and remember who he is.

It's all so simple, and expansive for the center of his being. Instead of subtituting external masters, he remembers there is but one and it serves him, as him. It's an instant obsolescence of externalized loci of power.

Personal experience

Reflecting on what I've read, studied and lived, I feel that the deluge of devices, data, and algorithms have pushed us to believe that we must keep busy or that we exist to be used, and without either we simply don't matter. It seems to me that these are orchestrated by capitalism and societal anxiety to extract and monetize an illusion that we are not whole. This isn't true. It's easier to sell to and through, but it's not who we truly are. Our first and most authentic touchstone is therefore to reach inward to that which is core.

Within our core we are without need and strings, because in there we find stillness and our immovable observer. Call it divinity, nirvana, soul, or whatever you like, but I've always found that at our center is a self-sustaining radiance, and it's without requirement except to be allowed to be felt and recognized. No device or algorithm can affect that deep a level. At our core we are an unmovable truth of Being, and realizing that makes the whole detox effort a non-effort because there's nothing to really do except...stop doing (stop layering, stop abstracting, stop busy-making), and just listen. You especially don't want to get lost in a chaotic foam of hobbies hobbies hobbies. Hobbies are fun and creative and a good source of play, but you shouldn't just pile them on to fill space and time. Be selective, choose few, and really focus. Depth should be the goal, not concurrent breadth. Serve no new masters.