This was written January 05, 2025
Introduction
Hello everyone!
As I find myself writing this, it is roughly 5:30pm Sunday evening, local time. It has now been a few weeks since I’ve start a new experiment, Disconnected Sundays, with varying degrees of success.
Disconnected Sundays
What are Disconnected Sundays? Simply put, I’ve decided to spend` the entirety of my Sundays without access to internet. Thus, as I head to bed on Saturday night, I disable the internet from my laptop and phone. Then, I go about my Sunday life as normal, albeit without access to internet.
But why? Having realized I waste a significant amount of time on the internet, (and I do mean waste) and that it affects my mental health negatively, I set out to find a solution. There are two main culprits for this negative impact:
- I easily get consumed by passive activities online, such as watching videos or mindlessly browsing.
- I spend all my time thinking and worrying about communication with others, idly waiting for responses or communications from others, and constantly thinking about what to write to others, which generates a ton of anxiety.
Therefore, I opted to investigate whether avoiding these for one day a week could negate their negative impact. Whatmore, this could also hopefully increase my productivity.
Part of the inspiration came from the Shabboth. For those unfamiliar with it, part of this Judaic custom involves not being able to actively interact with electricity (for example, you can’t turn on or off a light). It’s been my impression that for a lot of people, part of this custom also involves further devotion to the scripture, resulting in impressive results. It also seems like a lot of people generally use this as an opportunity to read, study or do what I’d consider more productive activities (including close-knit social interactions).
While I am not a practitioner of this faith, I still find it a rather inspiring one. And I couldn’t help but ponder over this custom and its benefits. I eventually concluded that there were important take aways leading to an opportunity to better myself. And so, I landed on this notion of Disconnected Sundays.
Why Sundays? It’s simple, it’s the only day of the week I neither work nor go to school, so it seemed like the only valid option. In particular, on any workday, it seems like I’m “duty-bound” to using my phone.
Results so far
As I’ve said, it’s already been a few weeks since I’ve started.So, how’s it going so far? Well, it’s a mixed bag. For starters, I tend to stay up rather late on Saturdays. Indeed, it’s the only day of the week where I can afford to, and it sometimes is necessary when I want to inteact with family or friends in other time zones. With a 12-16h time difference, opportunities for longer calls or gaming sessions are definitely rarer. Accordingly, it’s not rare on Sundays for me to wake up around 12pm or 1pm, a huge chunk of my day already having elapsed. I’ve also had 1-2 days where I was fairly sick, and simply spent all day in bed reading and resting.
However, despite these “setbacks”, I still consider most of those days to have be fairly productive. I find myself reading a lot more than on average days, I manage to make good progress on homework and studies, I even find time to work on some projects (such as writing this current post). So overall, I would label this a success. So much so I’m wondering whether I should try to implement this on Mondays as well, although it might be a bit more complicated, and inconvenient for others.
While this covers productivity, there remains my tendency to stress over communications with others. Well, I still find myself looking at my phone fairly regularly, or at the very least thinking about it, and then realizing that I don’t actually have access to this functionality. Still, as the day goes on, this tendency gradually wanes, which is a positive tendency. It’s just a shame that benefit does not carry on through the rest of the week, and nor to the next Sunday, but it is what it is. Better a temporary gain than no gain at all!
Of course, this does not come without its lot of inconveniences. For isntance, I’ve had a few instances where I went out and just couldn’t look up specific information online, nor use a map to find locations. But hey, that used to be the status quo just a few short decades ago, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to adapt to it, right?
Lastly, I must also admit that I unfortnately often lack in the discipline department. There have been a few occurences of me re-enabling the internet around 9pmi and communicating with others or watching stuff online. Still, that does not invalidate any of the progress I make during the rest of the day, far from it. And it’s something I should still be able to improve.
Conclusion
Well, there you are. Disconnected Sundays are a new habit I’ve formed, which I believe adds value to my weeks. And although it comes with some costs, the benefits definitely outway the negatives. Although keep in mind this is according to my own goals and mindset. Your mileage may vary.
Still, I do think it’s worth trying for yourselves, if you dare. If nothing, it’s at least an interesting experiment, and you could be find yourself pleasantly surprised by the results.
On that note, thanks for joining, and take care everyone!