“Make your online presence more meaningful”

The book about digital detox turned out to be just right: by an amazing coincidence, after reading it, I go on a 10-day Vipassana course, which implies a vow of silence, many hours of meditation – and, of course, no gadgets! It’s time to prepare for the detox, but … Reading did not go. But I wrote several posts on Facebook, including that “I just can’t read a book about digital detox, why not?” Friends expressed their support, their comments could not be left unanswered. Then I wrote several emails … In general, the picture of the disease is clear. Seeberg also suffered from it when he conceived this book.

Daniel Seeberg is a CBS journalist specializing in new technologies; he has a professional interest in gadgets, so he can always say to an angry wife: “Well, I need this for work.” He describes how gradually relationships with loved ones deteriorated, the ability to concentrate fell. The turning point came when he encountered a tiger shark (no, it didn’t bite his hand off with his iPhone) when he experienced what it meant to be completely focused on himself and his interaction with the world.

Read more:

• Digital Detox: Do We Really Need It?

Seeberg does not offer to throw away gadgets, his slogan is moderation. In the book, he draws an analogy with nutrition: you can eat different foods, but little by little and having figured out what is beneficial and what is not. The brain needs information, just as the whole body needs food, and both food and information can have different properties. When we are hungry, we can snack on a chocolate bar, but hardly anyone would think of making chocolate bars the main part of their diet. The story is the same with information: we want to have some fun, to learn something quickly – just in a social network someone posted a controversial post on a topical topic – rather go there! Here is a reputable publication published something new, but there is no time to read the article – enough eyeliner to roughly find out what it is about. The habit of constantly consuming a lot of superficial information arises quickly, it is not easy to get rid of it, it causes considerable harm. Seeberg invites readers to take internet addiction tests and recommends apps to help manage their time on the computer. I think the book will be useful to those who want to reduce their presence on the Internet and make it more meaningful. As a psychologist, I would like to offer Internet-addicted fellow citizens to understand what does not suit them in “real life”, what they lack, what they may be running away from. I will have plenty of time to think about it.”