Thought:
Disconnecting from social media for extended periods of time allows you to fight the addictions
Why? How?
Being a digital nomad means being, well, digital.
It means that your work happens on the web - at least the vast majority of it.
Which also implies that you are hyper-connected.
You feel guilty when you don’t check your emails. You feel the need to be present on social media, at the very least one one channel. You can’t help but overshare.
And that’s all fine. Wanting to belong is at the heart of the human DNA.
But there are two problems with that. The first is that endless scrolling means we lose control over our mind. The second is that social media kills our ability to dream healthily. It distorts our reality.
When we are on social media, we become autopilot zombies, scrolling through content and videos without stopping to enjoy each of them.
At the same time, our imagination becomes distorted with fake images, reducing our ability to appreciate what we have and turning our dreams into unachievable fantasies.
So precisely because social media was engineered to keep us addicted, there is something to be said for “non-digital” nomadism.
To keep our mind to ourselves, we need to keep it away from “digital” distractions.
As a digital nomad, try to have at least half a day with no digital distraction every week. Remove yourself from screens. Read a book, draw something, walk in nature, bake a cake, do anything that does not involve the “digital.”
At first, you might experience FOMO and guilt.
But over time, you’ll realize that taking breaks is the only way to fight the addiction and keep your mind to yourself.
And who knows what you’ll start dreaming about when baking cookies, instead of scrolling past near-perfect photoshopped bodies? I have a feeling that it will be a healthy dream.
Cheers,
Léa
