Life Without Data - Switching Off

On the sixteenth of June the unthinkable happened. I ran out of internet data for the month. My contract doesn't get reset until the first so this was a MAJOR problem. I spent the first 24 hours complaining to everyone who would listen about how my life was RUINED. How I couldn't receive iMessages and had to resort to texting, and how I had no idea what the weather was going to be/what my friends had had for lunch/where had sales on because I HAD NO INTERNET.

I have 2gb of internet a month on my contract, so in all honesty, I have no idea how I ran out. I can only assume at some point I thought I was on a wifi network when I wasn't, and watched a billion YouTube videos or something. Who knows.

The point is, that when I got that dreaded text, I had literally no idea how I was going to survive the month. And then it hit me how messed up that is.

It's taken a while, but over the last week, I actually started to enjoy not being connected to the internet every second of everyday. I didn't check my phone every five minutes when I'm out because there was nothing to check. I didn't walk around wondering what to add to my Snapchat story next. I didn't mindlessly scroll through Twitter whilst wondering around the shops, or waiting for my meal to be served. 

And it felt good. I didn't mind not being able to check Instagram when I'm out, or not being able to Snapchat my meal. I didn't mind not feeling attached to my inbox every second of everyday. It's kind of relaxing actually. I've even been leaving my phone in my handbag in the evenings, just enjoying time with Con, even that is just watching crappy TV in bed with a Rekorderlig. 

We feel the need to be so connected to information, we are so attached to our social media accounts. I for one, didn't realise just how much I checked my phone while I was out, until there was no point. It's kind of scary. I wonder what proportion of our lives we spend staring at screens. It's probably a scarily high percentage, and really, there are so many things that are better to look at.

In a way, I was almost not looking forward to getting my data back. I've decided to shut off all non-essential notifications, I've turned off Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Emails, the lot. In fact, I think the only thing left on is the actual phone functions, texts and calls. And I'm going to try and keep the habit up of not checking my phone all the time even when my data is back. Because it feels really nice to disconnect sometimes.