Digital Detox Quotes

Using Facebook is like taking a Dyson to your spare time.

You could say that Facebook is doing a far more effective job than religion at teaching us to 'love thy neighbor,' connecting us with random strangers and 'friends' from distant lands.

use your Daily Reflection as your daily digital detox window. After your PM Reflection, implement a “screens off” policy that lasts until you’ve completed your AM Reflection the following morning. It’s a simple way to get yourself into the habit of unplugging.

Facebook is big. Bigger than Justin Bieber or Ashton Kutcher's Twitter following. Hell, it's even bigger than obesity and possibly just as lethal!

Facebook has been spreading across the continents faster than a highly contagious Asian bird flu!

And just like time, once we’ve spent attention, we can never get it back.

I reached for my phone to soothe myself, but I often crossed the line from feeling soothed to going numb.

The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free. —Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Things changed when my phone outsmarted me. Once Facebook had a permanent place in my pocket, it became a permanent portal—able to transport me away from my family. Even if we were physically in the same room, I wasn’t necessarily there with them. Facebook was no longer simply a naptime vacation but an all-day form of escapism.

Put this all together, and it makes sense that spending a lot of time on social media could be associated with depression and lower self-esteem. What doesn’t make sense is that we are deliberately choosing to relive the worst parts of middle school.

Multiple studies have associated the heavy use of smartphones (especially when used for social media) with negative effects on neuroticism, self-esteem, impulsivity, empathy, self-identity, and self-image, as well as with sleep problems, anxiety, stress, and depression.

Breaking up with your phone means giving yourself the space, freedom, and tools necessary to create a new, long-term relationship with it, one that keeps what you love about your phone and gets rid of what you don’t.

When I turn to my phone to cope with stress, I don’t return to my family more able to handle the stress. When I sneak away to social media, I don’t return to my husband and children more socially available. When I put my face in Facebook, rather than the Good Book, I don’t find the help I need when it’s time to face my family again.

A social media fast is not about keeping technology in its rightful place. Oh, no! This is about keeping God in His rightful place: at the center of our attention and affection.

It's possible that the people you follow online have come between you and the One who said, “Follow Me.

When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail: the more I used my phone to navigate my life, the less capable I felt of navigating life without my phone.

Perhaps this is part of the reason that Jobs—the man who introduced the iPhone—restricted his own children’s access to his company’s products.

Psychologists refer to unpredictable rewards as “intermittent reinforcements.” I call them “the reason we date jerks.

Facebook, in fact, is the biggest surveillance-based enterprise in the history of mankind. It knows far, far more about you than the most intrusive government has ever known about its citizens. —John Lanchester

Nothing in my life has made loving God with all my heart, soul, and mind more di cult than my constant connection to my devices. The same is true when it comes to loving my real-life neighbors. Devices are divisive.

Whenever you check for a new post on Instagram or whenever you go on the New York Times to see if there’s a new thing, it’s not even about the content. It’s just about seeing a new thing. You get addicted to that feeling. —Aziz Ansari

our attention is the most valuable thing we have. We experience only what we pay attention to. We remember only what we pay attention to. When we decide what to pay attention to in the moment, we are making a broader decision about how we want to spend our lives.

The more you practice being mindful, the more it becomes obvious that your brain has a mind of its own. (I like to think of my mind as a good friend who also happens to be totally crazy.) The moment you recognize that you don’t have to say yes to every invitation is the moment you gain control over your life

The irony, of course, is that most people’s feeds do not accurately represent the proportion of their lives they actually spend skiing/surfing/sitting in hot tubs with models. Also, many people with enormous social media followings are actually paid to glamorize their lives. If someone’s existence looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Today, just over a decade since smartphones entered our lives, we’re beginning to suspect that their impact on our lives might not be entirely good. We feel busy but ineffective. Connected but lonely. The same technology that gives us freedom can also act like a leash—and the more tethered we become, the more it raises the question of who’s actually in control.

Have you bought into the lie that “You are what you tweet”? Spend forty days discovering who God says you are. Your identity is not found in how witty or pithy your 280 characters can be. You are a child of God, made in His likeness. Shut down Twitter and open up your Bible. Spend your time digging into the Word and discover who you are there, based on God’s opinion.

The pace of this modern age is not conducive to maintaining one’s consciousness. Glued to our electronics, we are blind and deaf to the world around us. Run down by our long work days, we are too exhausted to think and too hurried to feel. The day ends in a haze of strained thoughts, numbness, and fatigue. And we rise the next morning only to start the cycle again. In this age of distraction, if you desire to fritter away your life with empty diversions, there is an abundance of gadgets available to aid you. Quietness is a characteristic of ages gone by. Our generation is the one it died with. Connected to the virtual world, we ignore the presence of those in our home. One can only hope we will awaken to the need for balance before we look up from the screen to find our loved ones have gone, and our life has passed us by.

For most of the population these days, the only thing that ever dances is a pair of thumbs texting. No wonder people are aging so fast on the Ship of Fools sailing Titanic-like through today into no tomorrow. As people’s souls shrink through lack of movement, their connective tissue hardens and their bones turn brittle. This isn’t metaphoric. This is the mind-body-spirit connection on full display, for anyone who cares to contemplate its cause and effects, in real time.

If you habitually look for love and companionship online, when the love of God is found in the companionship of Christ, then social media isn’t good for you. Perhaps you need a short forty-day break to connect with God. Disconnecting from that which is less good frees you up to connect with the One who is most good. With His help, when this fast is over you might be able to set boundaries around your online relationships that allow you to enjoy those good gifts in light of the good Gift-Giver. But if you can’t, then don’t reengage online. All things may be allowed, but if they don’t allow you to stay focused on the satisfying goodness of God, then they aren’t good for you.

ONE OF THE MOST COMMON defenses of phones is the idea that they’re making us better at multitasking and, in so doing, more efficient. Unfortunately, this isn’t true. There’s actually no such thing as multitasking (that is, simultaneously processing two or more attention-demanding tasks), because our brains can’t do two cognitively demanding things at once.* When we think we’re multitasking, we’re actually doing what researchers call “task-switching.” Like cars making sharp turns, our brains need to slow down and switch gears every time we stop thinking about one thing and engage with another—a process that has been estimated to take twenty-five minutes every time you do it.

C. S. Lewis once wrote, “There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.” Our good God wants to use social media for our good and His glory, but Satan is hell-bent on owning that territory and using it for our distracted demise. This is true in everything. God wants us focused; Satan loves us frazzled. God wants us devoted; Satan loves it when we’re distracted. God wants us content; Satan loves us discontent—dissatisfied, depressed, and dejected. God wants us to know His incomparable love, while the devil wants us comparing our lives with others as we search for a di erent sort of love—a love that looks more like “likes.

22. Giving up Distraction Week #4 Saturday Scripture Verses •Hebrews 12:1–2 •Mark 1:35 •John 1:14–18 Questions to Consider •What distracts you from being present with other people around you? •What distracts you from living out God’s agenda for your life? •What helps you to focus and be the most productive? •How does Jesus help us focus on what is most important in any given moment? Plan of Action •At your next lunch, have everyone set their phone facing down at the middle of the table. The first person who picks up their phone pays for the meal. •Challenge yourself that the first thing you watch, read, or listen to in the morning when you wake up is God’s Word (not email or Facebook). •Do a digital detox. Turn off everything with a screen for 24 hours. Tomorrow would be a great day to do it, since there is no “40 Things Devotion” on Sunday. Reflection We live in an ever connected world. With smart phones at the tip of our fingers, we can instantly communicate with people on the other side of the world. It is an amazing time to live in. I love the possibilities and the opportunities. With the rise of social media, we not only connect with our current circle of friends and family, but we are also able to connect with circles from the past. We can build new communities in the virtual world to find like-minded people we cannot find in our physical world. Services like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram all have tremendous power. They have a way of connecting us with others to shine the light of Jesus. While all of these wonderful things open up incredible possibilities, there are also many dangers that lurk. One of the biggest dangers is distraction. They keep us from living in the moment and they keep us from enjoying the people sitting right across the room from us. We’ve all seen that picture where the family is texting one another from across the table. They are not looking at each other. They are looking at the tablet or the phone in front of them. They are distracted in the moment. Today we are giving up distraction and we are going to live in the moment. Distraction doesn’t just come from modern technology. We are distracted by our work. We are distracted by hobbies. We are distracted by entertainment. We are distracted by busyness. The opposite of distraction is focus. It is setting our hearts and our minds on Jesus. It’s not just putting him first. It’s about him being a part of everything. It is about making our choices to be God’s choices. It is about letting him determine how we use our time and focus our attention. He is the one setting our agenda. I saw a statistic that 80% of smartphone users will check their phone within the first 15 minutes of waking up. Many of those are checking their phones before they even get out of bed. What are they checking? Social media? Email? The news of the day? Think about that for a moment. My personal challenge is the first thing I open up every day is God’s word. I might open up the Bible on my phone, but I want to make sure the first thing I am looking at is God’s agenda. When I open up my email, my mind is quickly set to the tasks those emails generate rather than the tasks God would put before me. Who do I want to set my agenda? For me personally, I know that if God is going to set the agenda, I need to hear from him before I hear from anyone else. There is a myth called multitasking. We talk about doing it, but it is something impossible to do. We are very good at switching back and forth from different tasks very quickly, but we are never truly doing two things at once. So the challenge is to be present where God has planted you. In any given moment, know what is the one most important thing. Be present in that one thing. Be present here and now.

A temporary detox is a much weaker resolution than trying to permanently change your life, and therefore much easier for your mind to subvert when the going gets tough.

When you’re on vacation, avoid the dreaded email pileup upon your return by creating a new email account along the lines of “[Your Name]_Important.” Then set an auto-responder that says not just that you are on vacation and won’t be checking email, but that you won’t be reading the email that accumulates while you’re away. Give the name of someone to contact if people need immediate help, and say that if people really want to talk to you upon your return, they should resend the message to the aforementioned “important” email address, and that you will respond when you’re back. You will be amazed by how few people actually take you up on this. (This is inspired by a German company, Daimler, which automatically deletes employees’ incoming emails while they’re on vacation and tells senders whom to contact if they need immediate help.)

keeps what you love about your phone and gets rid of what you don’t. A relationship,

I’ve spent the morning googling digital detoxes

We called the ritual a “digital Sabbath,” and by the second or third time we’d done it, we’d settled into a rhythm and worked out the kinks.

Today, we’re going to start practicing something that’s simultaneously simple and hard: being still. We tend to think of stillness as being synonymous with boredom, and it’s true that we often use both words to describe the same state of mind. But while the word boredom carries with it an element of feeling trapped, stillness offers an opportunity for peace. As Pema Chödrön writes in her book, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, “If we immediately entertain ourselves by talking, by acting, by thinking—if there’s never any pause—we will never be able to relax. We will always be speeding through our lives.

Give me the specifications, and I’ll give you the man! What do you say to the control of motivation, building the interests which will make men most productive and most successful? Does that seem to you fantastic? Yet some of the techniques are available, and more can be worked out experimentally. Think of the possibilities!32 Frazier’s example of a more productive man is no accident. Like someone running a corporate digital detox retreat, he is obsessed with productivity, claiming fantastically that mankind is only 1 percent as productive as it could be.

A major reason that I recommend taking an extended break before trying to transform your digital life is that without the clarity provided by detox, the addictive pull of the technologies will bias your decisions.

The boundaries that protected your real life, which is time with your closest relationships, your most meaningful activities, and your God, are gone. No built-in boundaries of space or time to protect your life. Unless you build them.

Over time, regular reading causes physical changes to the brain in areas responsible for reasoning, processing visual signals, and even memory.

Over time, regular reading causes physical changes to the brain in areas responsible for reasoning, processing visual signals, and even memory. In other words, learning to read doesn’t just enable us to store and retrieve information; it literally changes the way we think.

We learn to stay with the uneasiness, the tightening, the itch of [our cravings]. We train in sitting still with our desire to scratch. This is how we learn to stop the chain reaction of habitual patterns that otherwise will rule our lives. —Pema Chödrön

When we decide what to pay attention to in the moment, we are making a broader decision about how we want to spend our lives.

The closer we pay attention to the options we’re given,” he writes, “the more we’ll notice when they don’t actually align with our true needs.

digital detox

Out with the toxic, in with the terrific! Delete toxic thoughts forever, no archive—let go of those energy vampires and soul-sucking leeches. Life's too short to waste on negativity and drama. Surround yourself with the sunshine of positive vibes and the laughter of genuine connections. It's a digital detox for the soul, clearing out the clutter and making room for the good stuff. So long, toxic thoughts—here's to a brighter, happier, and healthier you!

Ah, the sweet bliss of jomo – the Joy Of Missing Out! It's like a warm hug from your couch, a high-five to solitude, and a victory dance for staying in your own lane. While the world hustles and bustles, you're happily nestled in your cocoon of contentment, savoring the simple pleasures of quiet nights, leisurely mornings, and uninterrupted me-time. So embrace the JOMO vibe, my friend. The thrill of missing out, and the sheer delight of being perfectly, wonderfully, unapologetically you.

The digital detox isn't what you think it is. It's like a diet. Once you go on it, you feel better until you log into social media again. If you want real change, figure out what works best for your lifestyle.

Oh, and if you’re thinking that this obviously does not apply to you, keep in mind that the more sleep-deprived people are, the more vigorously they may insist that they are not—possibly because their ability to judge their own mental state has been impaired.

And so the morning progresses. From the moment you wake up until you’ve thrown the first cup of coffee down your throat, your attention is dominated by technology. Texts, emails, social media, games, news headlines, blogs, and YouTube videos hold you captive in a vice-like grip.

The bad news is that the obsession with social media is almost certainly producing unhealthy side effects. Scientists have discovered that constant exposure to websites like Facebook and Twitter can alter the brain, affecting the ability to process emotions. It can also lead to restlessness, negative self-image, a decline in happiness, and in extreme cases, depression.

If you nd yourself constantly thirsty for more, never quite satis ed no matter how often you go back to draw from the well of social media or online streaming and shopping, then you’ve likely been drinking from a well that was never meant to satisfy you. Like it or not, we all tend to forsake the spring of living water and dig our own cisterns. They’re broken and, as a result, so are we. Still, we keep at it. And the more broken we become, the more fervent our search for happiness. Each ping, buzz, and noti cation triggers a dopamine release in our brains, synthetically creating a short sensation of happi- ness. We’ve become chemically and emotionally addicted to these short-lived highs. That’s why I’ve decided to put my foot down by putting my phone down, so that I might pick up the joy-inducing presence of God instead.

Lay down Facebook and lift up your face. Put down Facebook so that you might spend some undistracted time face-to-face with Him. Your face in His book: that’s the Facebook you need right now.

Exchange your online distractions for real-life devotion.

Each time I step back from the clutter of the online world, I’m amazed how much time is freed up to declutter my real world.

While our smart devices offer us an easy way to nd anything in the world, they can also be a distraction from the things that can’t be found with a Google search.

Smartphones engage in disruptive behaviors that have traditionally been performed only by extremely annoying people. What’s

Today, I’d argue that we can take this even further: if you wanted to invent a device that could rewire our minds, if you wanted to create a society of people who were perpetually distracted, isolated, and overtired, if you wanted to weaken our memories and damage our capacity for focus and deep thought, if you wanted to reduce empathy, encourage self-absorption, and redraw the lines of social etiquette, you’d likely end up with a smartphone.

Personally, I’ve noticed that while it can initially be pleasant, I hardly ever feel better after I use my phone—an observation that has helped me catch myself when I’m about to pick it up out of habit.

The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free.

This also makes it easier to see why the strategies generally recommended for defeating distraction—digital detoxes, personal rules about when you’ll allow yourself to check your inbox, and so forth—rarely work, or at least not for long. They involve limiting your access to the things you use to assuage your urge toward distraction, and in the case of the most addictive forms of technology, that’s surely a sensible idea. But they don’t address the urge itself.

digital detox is ‘not the solution, for the same reason that wearing a gas mask for two days a week outside isn’t the answer to pollution.

Notifications don’t just take the form of sounds and messages on your lock screen.

1) Only check email once, twice a day maximum. You need slow time to think, reflect and come up with new ideas. The switching costs of going back and forth between email and other tasks can affect focus in very negative ways. Focus on one thing at a time. Studies show that multi-tasking is actually counter productive. 2) Only do what only YOU can do. Everything else? Delegate! It's the only way you'll truly be able to grow your business. 3) Automate and come up with systems as much as you can. Always think: Is there a way to automate what I'm doing right now? 4) Have a Digital Detox, tech free day. It will help you be more productive in every possible way. You need time to recharge.

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

The goal is not to simply give yourself a break from technology, but to instead spark a permanent transformation of your digital life. The detoxing is merely a step that supports this transformation.

Imagine how difficult it would be to doze off if all of the people you follow on social media were in the room with you, the television was blaring in the background, and several friends were having a political debate. That’s essentially what you’re doing when you bring your phone into bed with you.

le distrazioni digitali di bassa qualità rivestono un ruolo importante nella vita delle persone, più di quanto queste immaginino

When your device usage becomes excessive to the point where you simply cannot imagine going a day without it, you may have a problem and need to detox. A “digital detox” means you find a period of time where you refrain from using your device(s).

on your target market and marketplace to optimize sales.  Prompt:  If I want to list this ebook on amazon, can you give me a price point that will maximise the number of sales based on my target audience? ChatGPT Response: Pricing your ebook on Amazon can be a tricky task, as it depends on various factors such as your target audience, competition, and the value that your book offers. However, generally speaking, a lower price point is more likely to result in more sales, as it will make your book more accessible to a wider range of readers. For a non-fiction ebook such as "Unplugged: The Ultimate Guide to Digital Detoxing and Finding Peace in the Modern World", a price point of $2.99 to $4.99 is considered competitive and will likely maximize the number of sales. This price range positions your book competitively against similar books while still being affordable for most readers. It's also important to note that you can change the price of your book from time to time, for example, you can offer discounts or promotions to boost sales, or you can raise the price if you feel it's undervalued. Additionally, you can also offer the book for free for a limited

When you’re out to dinner with friends and everyone else is on their phones, try taking a photo of them on their devices and then texting it to them with a note saying, ‘I miss you!’” —

Mindfulness is about seeing the world more clearly”—including ourselves.

Research is showing that the relationship between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex is actively being sabotaged by the chronic stress and lack of adequate sleep that are so characteristic of modern life.8 Unhealthful digital exposure, nature deprivation, and poor diet only add to the problem. This is threatening not just us as individuals but also the health of the entire planet.

Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World.

It’s worth pointing out that dopamine-induced excitement is not the same thing as actual happiness, connection, joy, or satisfaction.

The physical presence of another human being cannot be duplicated by a machine. There is no substitute for being together.

1 hour per day = roughly 15 full days per year, about 6 percent of your waking life 2 hours per day = roughly 30 full days per year, about 13 percent of your waking life 3 hours per day = roughly 45 full days per year, about one fifth of your waking life 4 hours per day = roughly 60 full days per year, about one quarter of your waking life 5 hours per day = roughly 76 full days per year, almost one third of your waking life

Are apps here to make life simpler or more complicated? Are you working remotely or being worked remotely? Who’s in control here—you or forces seemingly beyond your control?

as users, we should be using our apps because we’ve made a conscious choice to do so—not because of manipulative psychological tricks that are meant to make money for someone else.

Children notice the behavior of those they see around them, so adults need to be aware of their own screen use and how it impacts on those closest to them.

So many of our worries about screen overuse seem focused on children, and yet how many important family conversations and moments are parents missing out on because they are looking at their smartphone?

if you wanted to invent a device that could rewire our minds, if you wanted to create a society of people who were perpetually distracted, isolated, and overtired, if you wanted to weaken our memories and damage our capacity for focus and deep thought, if you wanted to reduce empathy, encourage self-absorption, and redraw the lines of social etiquette, you’d likely end up with a smartphone.

We are so immersed in an acclimated to the experience of our fast-paced, digital lives that it is challenging to gain a sense of the traumas subtly embedding each day.

The point is that many of the same feel-good brain chemicals and reward loops that drive addictions are also released and activated when we check our phones.

In short: the more nuanced and detailed your schemas are, the greater your capacity for complex thought. But schemas take time—and mental space—to build. When our brains are overloaded, our ability to create schemas suffers.

This is a really big deal, because our attention is the most valuable thing we have. We experience only what we pay attention to. We remember only what we pay attention to. When we decide what to pay attention to in the moment, we are making a broader decision about how we want to spend our lives.

The numbers are staggering: a New York Times analysis calculated that as of 2014, Facebook users were spending a collective 39,757 years’ worth of attention on the site, every single day.

In other words, what we think of as irresistible impulses are actually invitations being sent by our minds. This is an important insight, because once you recognize this, you can ask your mind why it’s inviting you to such crappy parties.

the more I used my phone to navigate my life, the less capable I felt of navigating life without my phone.

Whenever you check for a new post on Instagram or whenever you go on the New York Times to see if there’s a new thing, it’s not even about the content. It’s just about seeing a new thing. You get addicted to that feeling.

You don’t pay for Facebook. Advertisers pay for Facebook. You get to use it for free because your eyeballs are what’s being sold there.

there is nothing wrong with spending your attention on social media (or on any other app). There is also nothing wrong with a designer trying to make an app that’s fun, engaging, and profitable. But as users, we should be using our apps because we’ve made a conscious choice to do so—not because of manipulative psychological tricks that are meant to make money for someone else.

Focus isn’t profitable. Distraction is.

In fact, many scholars believe that the development of written language was an integral step toward the development of culture.

Your mind wanders because you have a mind.

The fact that they are on the internet gives them more weight than the suggestions of real-life people around you. Barry Schwartz, psychologist and author of The Paradox of Choice, refers to this form of researching as “maximizing.” Not only is it exhausting, but it can also steal the wonderful feeling of discovery that comes from stumbling across things by accident.

Screens offer escape — but they also rob us of the very discomfort that builds strength.

You know you’ve lost your simplicity when you’ve found your busy-ness.