DIGITAL DETOX: UNPLUGGING IN A DIGITAL AGE | OPINION PIECE
Are selfies, the new and healthy way to start your day ?
As a certified Zoomer (yes- believe it or not, we Gen Z-ers have started to call ourselves zoomers 🤪), I do believe that my generation has a bit of an addiction with selfies. The 0.5 zoom technique may have recently made its way onto everyone’s feeds on Instagram but a tried and true classic one will always be the bathroom mirror selfie.
Instead of waking up and brushing your teeth or washing your face, why don’t you take a selfie? You certainly need to share that you #wokeuplikethis to your many followers. You already bring your phone into the bathroom anyway 🤭!
#selfie , 2023. Illustrated by Azalea Afendi.
#tea , 2023. Illustrated by Azalea Afendi.
Using social media on our phones has become so ingrained in how we live and operate. Scrolling is like, second nature to us.
So how are we supposed to unplug in this digitally dependent day and age
dawg?
So how are we supposed to unplug in this digitally dependent day and age
dawg?
#journal , 2023. Illustrated by Azalea Afendi.
Touch some grass (literally, lol).
Do something nice for yourself today. We’ve all heard about self-care and taking time to unwind but a lot of us still use that as an excuse to do something related to our dear digital devices. Sure, self-care can totally be watching the entire
✨ High School Musical ✨ Trilogy for the seventeenth time, or scrolling through TikTok until 3am, but it can also be just sitting by yourself at a park, and being content with that.
We’ve become so reliant on using our phones to do the most basic things, it’s become a tool for us to even make ourselves happy. For crying out loud we’ve even come to a point where we use the NOTES APP to publicly apologise for our ignorant wrong doings 🤦♀️. In some ways, our digital devices have done more harm to us than any good.
#breathe, 2023. Illustrated by Azalea Afendi.
Pause for a moment and think about all of the things in your life that you’re grateful for that isn’t your phone, or any other digital device for that matter.
Take a deep breath.
Inhale, and exhale.
Listen to your heart and remember everything you used to do as a kid that made you happy. Like eating ice cream on the beach in the summer, or playing on the swings until you felt dizzy. While your phone can do many things, it will never feel anything- and it is, at the end of the day, another material device. Your mind and heart can give you a lot more than your little blue-light screen can. Don’t take yourself for granted and get off your phone when you can. You’ll thank yourself later.
@rhododendrawn
www.rhododendrawn.com