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I think a lot of these articles come from a place of surprise more than necessarily projecting that everyone has the same issues: they recommend everyone try it because it becomes a surprise how much online activities have become the background radiation of our lives. We live with such things as absolutely normal every day things, "addicted" or not, and have stopped questioning their general place in our lives because they are just so "normal". It probably is fine that all of these things have so quickly become "normal", but it is noticeable how shocking it can feel when you take a break from the current "normal", and that probably is worth reminding people to try to take such breaks if only to also experience such "culture shocks". (Whether or not you projecting that as a societal "problem" or not.) More than 50 years ago one prominent philosopher anticipated an increasing problem with "Future Shock" where the world has just changed so much so rapidly that people would have a harder and harder time dealing with technological life. (This was a spark that ignited a lot of Cyberpunk tropes in the 80s among other things.) With hindsight, it seems clear that we've intentionally and/or inadvertently "boiled the frog" better than philosopher's like that one anticipated. We made technological life the background normal of a huge populace. So much so that it is perhaps a lot more noticeable this sort of "Past Shock" where someone disconnects for long enough to feel it. Speaking only for myself, about a decade ago I started taking advantage of some of my vacation time to entirely disconnect for at least a week. (In my case, by doing Caribbean cruises where data plans are so expensive to not be worth it.) It is shocking. It does feel healthy and useful to me and my mental health. I don't consider myself an "addict" and have taken a lot of steps to eliminate some of the worse "addictions" of modern internet life (I left Twitter for slower Mastodon feeds, Discord chats with chosen communities, and a broader return to RSS; I dropped all non-comedy news sources; as a couple examples), but there's still so much I take for granted in the current "normal" that is lovely to have at least one, shocking, week long break from each year. I would recommend it to other people. Not because I think other people are "addicted", quite the contrary, I think other people are "normal" and maybe just don't realize how hot the water is all around them (whether or not that's fine to be in such generally hot water; to abuse the metaphor a bit, as my vacations also remind me sometimes it's great to be in a hot tub or sauna for longer than is "strictly healthy" per posted signs, it feels normal and fun and if you don't dehydrate yourself or accidentally heat stroke in the process what was the harm). (ETA: given some of the other comments in related threads, it may say something that for me it takes at least a full week to really feel the shock. Three days does seem too short to me. I don't know if that says my attempts to eliminate some "addictive" sources have worked better than I think they have or not, but anecdotally, it is interesting data to add.) |