On slowing down and detaching from Internet

There is absolute significance of slowing down and detaching voluntarily and intentionally from Internet.

I started my 2024 with deleting one app from my phone daily and I wanted to continue doing this throughout the whole January. The first app I deleted was Instagram, followed by Facebook Messenger. I can always access them via web version, and since I am using iMessage and Telegram by default when texting friends using iOS and android respectively, I simply do not need to install another IM app if I can keep my workflows as simple as possible.

I want my time back and for the first time ever, I felt a great chunk of time – uninterrupted time and attention – was returning back to me. I could do so many things with this time. I guess this truly represents the concept of quality time. I can make coffee without thinking about my friends’ story posts, I can preparing dinner for my cats without worrying if I missed any DMs that are absolutely non important at all, I can read my books, both on paperback and Kindle.

To create a undistracted personal space, the first thing we need to do is to detach ourselves from unnecessary connections that will turn us into the products of digital capitalism.

Morgan mentioned in her email on new year eve last year about "creating a little friction through interface" so users are able to get the intention behind the product – I believe that would be great if it’s designed and done intentionally while the message is being transmitted to users effectively too. This can be related to something I recently read from the famous “The Shape of Design” by Frank Chimero: friction created intentionally will add on the magic to storytelling in the design. For example there are some books, pretty old ones, were printed in a very old manner that readers need to use a knife to carefully slice the fold open so that they can read the page printed inside, they are known as the “unopened book” (see photos below). This creates a perfect moment of storytelling by involving readers’ input. It’s not just a mere matter of opening a book and reading it, it is an adventure and the result is very personal. Imagining a novel is made in such way with a forward “use a knife to slice open the following pages along your adventure within this book”! That would be remarkable.