Recently, I spent 5 days on my grandparent’s old farmstead in west central IL. My aunt owns the property now, and she’s done amazing things to renovate the house so that all of us can still gather there as extended family. It’s really quite magical. This is one of the first places on the earth I ever stepped foot, and 40 years later it’s still one of the places I love to frequent for so many reasons. We had a fantastically simple and amazingly fun time. What did we do that made it so toe-tingly good? We had NO Internet, no cable TV, and a spotty cell connection, so we were forced to completely UNPLUG for the duration of our trip.
What was that like, you ask?
At first, I freaked out a bit (this was going through my head: what will I do without Netflix and how will I watch Orange is the New Black each night before I go to bed?!?). Then, I decided that a forced break might be a good experience for my daughter (screens/my iPad is like crack cocaine for my 8 year old). And, I got a grip, and I settled into being a human BEING, with nothing on my “to do” list except to eat, rest, and actually talk face-to-face with others.
So, what did I learn from this BLACKOUT?
I learned that I love my iPhone, I rely on Facebook for connecting with others, and I can spend hours whiling away time on Pinterest, looking at cool things I’ll never do or create. But what struck me most was this:
As much as I love all of these things and the conveniences/ideas/ease they afford me, I love vacationing from them, too.
Here are three reasons why I encourage you to take your own break from social media. Create your own BLACKOUT. Unplug for more than a week-end, and you may very likely find:
1. You sleep better.
If you suffer from insomnia at all, I urge you to realize that staying up at night to play on Facebook (guilty as charged, here) or read on your Kindle App does not do your natural biological rhythms any favors. You are hyper-stimulating yourself and you don’t even realize it. Instead, get out an old-fashioned paper book, put on some soothing music, or just lay and listen to the noises outside your window. It’ll be night-night time before you know it.
2. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
After my 5 day break, I returned to my virtual world and found that I ACTUALLY missed it a bit. I missed seeing what others had been up to, I missed the laughs and funnies that populate my newsfeed, and I missed being able to interact with some of my favorite people in the world—both old friends and new ones. Absence makes the heart grow fonder…too true.
3. You gain white space.
It’s easy to get caught-up in all of the technology and social media that dominates our modern lives. It’s everywhere, and it’s GOOD STUFF, for the most part. However, I do believe there is a ton of value in stepping away for a time because it provides you with WHITE SPACE. And that white space gives you time to think, time to dream, time to just BE. It reminds you that ALL of your world is a creation of your own mind, and your mind needs a rest, too, every now and again. When we rest our brains, we allow ourselves space to refuel and recover from the fast-paced, rapid-fire, get-it-all-done-NOW pace of life. And when we do that, we are that much more creative, productive, and efficient than ever before.
SO go ahead and blackout. It’s good for you.
xoxox,
