What I Noticed About Our Internet-Dependent Society

These days I have cancelled my home internet line and get by entirely by tethering from a budget smartphone. It is not as comfortable as fibre, but it is very cheap, works anywhere, and keeps my monthly costs low.

One day I left my phone at my studio and went home, which meant I had no internet at home for a whole day. That is when it struck me: what the internet really offers is the ability to pull in huge amounts of exactly the information you like, instantly.

On Digital Life

At first glance we live in a convenient world, and forgetting your phone feels like an inconvenience — but it made me realize many things.

Human beings are creatures who need, to some degree, to read words and take in information. Just as we eat to get nutrition, we cannot live without reading and accumulating knowledge.

With no other choice, I read the newspaper and a book. The contents were not things I was especially interested in, yet they looked different from usual.

Analogue Media

Even material I would normally skim past, I read carefully — imagining, inferring and reflecting as I went. The internet lets us touch only the information we like, but that day I noticed things that are easy to overlook in an internet-dependent society: the expressions on people's faces in newspaper photos, the intent behind subtle choices of wording.

I realized that an environment where we can easily get lots of only the information we like can actually skew our thinking. Cutting ourselves off from information now and then, I felt, is necessary to take a fresh look at ourselves and recharge.

Digital Detox

Lately I have also grown tired of the sheer volume of information in the world. I came to feel that I could not simply trust what I read online, in newspapers or on TV.

Stepping away from the mainstream media — and even from the internet — to calm the mind, a “digital detox,” may be important for our mental health. Regular digital detoxes, and time spent thinking without any device, seem truly valuable to me.

» The downsides of digital society and my approach to a digital detox

Changes in My Life

On a different note: my first solo exhibition is over and the various matters of the new fiscal year have settled down, so I intend to gradually put more energy into the next stage of sandragon965. First on the list: completing a major renovation of the website and making it multilingual.

May 7, 2018 — sandragon965

» Is a digital detox worth doing?

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