Digital Detox

On social media, simplicity, and solitude

Shortly after I began my Why Woodville? project on social media, I became kind of popular in my neck of the woods. I don't mean popular as in people necessarily liked me, but popular as in name recognition.

Holly Rabalais was the newcomer who started Why Woodville? Holly Rabalais was that lady who kept showing up to town meetings asking questions and voicing her opinion. Holly Rabalais was the woman who purchased an old building on Main Street and opened it as an event venue. Holly Rabalais was that crazy lady who walked around town just for fun and introduced herself to just about anyone.

So when I began getting friend requests left and right, I broke my rule. I've had Facebook since the year it became a thing--back when you had to be a student or have a ".edu" email address to register for an account. Through the years I had amassed a significant number of "friends"--family members, work buddies, friends from church, young people I mentored, but my hard and fast rule was that I did not accept friend requests from people I had never met in person.

Until Woodville.

I thought accepting all these new friend requests would be my way to meet people, to learn of happenings and important events. Yes, I did learn names to put with faces. And yes, these new connections did help me know my new community better. But my life became very loud and frenzied. I was going and doing and talking and meeting, but there was little time for restful things. It took its toll.

A couple of years into my loud, new life, I posted some thoughts that shed a negative light on something very beloved in the town (0/5: Do not recommend). I became even more infamous. My name was being thrown around by so many people in such unholy ways that Holly Rabalais is probably an SEO keyword by now.

Let's just say it was a very painful, humbling season that caused me to somewhat retreat from social media.

I didn't post as much, but I still found myself scrolling mindlessly and reaching for my phone when I was bored. Even though I had notifications turned off for almost every app, I would still check certain apps multiple times a day to "catch up" on the latest.

About six months ago, I had a realization: every time I finished a social media scrolling session, I felt icky. Unsettled. Dissatisfied. Annoyed. Inadequate. Small. Agitated.

Social media left me feeling like a storm was brewing.

Why was I doing this to myself?

I unfollowed every page I subscribed to and every person in my friends list. Not kidding. Every single one. Even my family. I thought not having the newsfeed to tempt me to scroll would curb my time in the apps.

And that's when I discovered reels. Lord, help me. Now I could replace mindless scrolling of friends' shenanigans with videos of complete strangers dancing to sound clips or falling off refrigerators or pranking their mom or lip syncing in the car. Reels were my new obsession.

At the same time, so much that I was reading in God’s Word was compelling me to FOCUS, get rid of the distractions that were hindering me (I'm looking at you, phone), so when Bob Goff's new book Undistracted arrived (I love Bob's books and had pre-ordered it in December) I thought, Here we go--time for a reset! This book is going to give me so much wisdom in how to curb the distractions in my life.

Then I put it on a shelf and continued with my scrolling because...well, you know...how could I possibly find margin in my life to read?

By the time I finally started reading Undistracted, I also had acquired Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport and I Guess I haven't Learned That Yet by Shauna Niequist. I broke another of my rules (“Finish one book before you start another”—which I’m realizing is a dumb rule) and began reading three books at once.

I found myself with a free Saturday when the weather was glorious, so I took some books outside to spend the afternoon reading. I thought I'd read for five minutes in each then decide which to commit to. But then I found they were all striking a chord, so I would read a chapter in one then a chapter in another then a chapter in the third, pausing to take notes and reflect on the passages.

This trifecta of published works did something to me.

The more I read, the more I realized that I couldn't continue life as I knew it with so many things and people pulling at my time and attention. I had to make some changes.

It was like Goff was speaking directly to me as I read:

“Quiet down your life if it has become loud….If we want to live more undistracted lives, we need to get real and admit that busyness is actually hijacking our joy.”

And Niequist struck a chord with:

"Moving to New York taught us that you don't need nearly as much space or as much stuff as you think....And the same is true for people....you don't need nearly as many people as you might think....you can love someone and learn from them and be deeply grateful for them for a season, and then bless their future."

I knew that I was not designed to hold onto and keep up with every single person I had ever met. The trying was making me anxious, but it was comforting to know that someone else had been trying to do this, too. Maybe I wasn’t such a weirdo.

So I began culling my friends on Facebook. Harsh? Perhaps, but it didn't seem like enough to unfollow them. My filtering wasn't too complicated.

Have I met you in person?

• No. Unfriend.

• Yes. Keep for more evaluation.

Have we communicated in the last five years?

• No? Unfriend.

• Yes? Evaluate further.

Are the majority of your posts political?

• Yes? Unfriend.

• No? Evaluate further.

Do your posts add value to my life or present a different perspective that could grow me?

• No? Unfriend.

• Yes? Evaluate further.

Are you an immediate neighbor, member of my church family, member of my biological family, or person I once mentored?

• No? Unfriend, unless your posts add value to my life and you seem to care about what I am posting.

• Yes? Keep.

Next, I decided to take a recommendation from Digital Minimalism and try a 30-day digital declutter. I began removing apps from my phone. My criteria?

Is this app optional?

• No? Keep.

• Yes? Remove unless it holds data I may not be able to retrieve deleted (and if I kept any app for this reason, I moved it to particular folder with the rule that I would not access it).

I had nearly 200 apps, y'all, and that's just crazy! In the end, I only kept about 50. 25% were those apps that got shoved in a folder with orders not to touch. 25% were apps I needed for my day job or my small business. The rest were what I consider to be necessary "System" apps (like Settings and App Store), communication apps (phone & messages), Bible study apps, and navigation apps (only to be used while driving long distances).

There I was with no Sudoku, social media, weather, news, ebooks, or music. Picking up the phone was no longer exciting, so I stopped. Here's what happened: My brain emerged from a fog.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had to find ways to fill all that time I previously spent scrolling. I started reading more, ruminating on what I read, journaling, reflecting on conversations with others, actually having conversations with others, sending letters and notes, identifying common threads in my days, cooking. It was amazing!

• I now subscribe to the email lists of a handful of authors I enjoy reading--Tim Cotton, Sean Dietrich, Shannan Martin, Brandon Stanton--and I actually read what they post (because before I was just skimming it to get to the next post in the queue, right?).

• I started this newsletter as a way to get back into the discipline of writing regularly.

• I've written countless notes of encouragement, thanks, and congratulations, something I enjoy immensely.

• I'm trying and sticking to a meal plan from Budget Bytes to help me figure out what's for dinner (spoiler: every freaking recipe we've tried has been GREAT!).

More than anything, I've been enjoying solitude. In Digital Minimalism, Newton's chapter on spending time alone is worth the purchase all by itself.

"Solitude is…a subjective state in which your mind is free from input of other minds...[That] requires you to move past reacting to information created by other people and focus instead on your own thoughts and experiences."

Newton argues that "new technologies help create a culture that undermines time alone with your thoughts." Studies show that solitude deprivation is contributing to so many mental health issues, not the least of which is anxiety. He says many people "have come to accept a background hum of low-grade anxiety that permeates their daily lives."

Raising my hand over here.

I'm recognizing that this hyper-connectivity that leaves little time for my own thoughts has created that persistent "hum of low-grade anxiety" that Newton discusses. Since disconnecting from the screen, I'm finding myself to be a more content, less anxious human (who still allows herself to binge on Netflix an evening or two out of the month—currently anticipating the next episodes of Stranger Things Season 4 while working my way through The Umbrella Academy).

My favorite spot for solitude revealed a rainbow the other day

Ironically, I began the digital detox about a week before my youngest child entered rehab. He's been detoxing from a physical addiction while I've been detoxing from behavioral one.

I'm still working on my digital declutter plan--I'd can’t say I’ve implemented all the recommended steps in the book (like creating operating procedures detailing how and when you will use optional technology), but this initial 6-week detox has been life-altering.

Disconnecting from technology is helping me find my self again, to learn to be with my thoughts and enjoy the simplicity of just breathing and existing.

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” - Blaise Pascal

Have you tried a digital detox? Leave a comment to let me know how you practice intentional solitude.

Until next time,

-Holly Not-famous-and-that’s-okay

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