It's not me, it's you - on breaking up with the internet
For those of you who prefer to read off paper rather than the screen, I have converted the post into an easily printable pdf file.
A few days ago our car broke down. I was in the grocery store parking lot when the steering wheel froze, and I could barely manage to pull to the side before the battery completely died. The demise of the engine had announced itself a few days earlier with a high squealing sound; I chose to ignore it for the time being and made a mental note to bring the car for a check-up, but clearly waited too long.
I could not help but notice the analogy to the realization that I needed to seriously reexamine the amount of internet use that had crept into my life. Yes, even as someone who does not own a cell-phone and does not spend any time on social media apart from Substack, I noticed that my mental space no longer felt as unfettered as it used to.
When I decided to designate several “don’t touch the computer days” over the Christmas holiday, I was struck by the changes I noticed in myself. I also realized that many of the challenges I had begun to face over the last few months, such as feeling inexplicably irritated, pressed for time, hurried, or overly busy, evaporated.
It was not me who was the problem, nor was it my children or the demands of life, it was the time spent on the internet dimension that sent me into a bit of a scramble.
Losing all sense of time
When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.
-Albert Einstein
I have a well-tuned inner clock and have not used a watch since my teenage years. Having developed a sense of how much time has passed, I can often correctly guess the hour within a few minutes. This is not so with the internet; it is an absolute black hole. I may sit down to respond to a comment, read an article, and then another, and suddenly find that 45 minutes have passed.
This week there was an article in the national newspaper about how smoking one cigarette shaves off 20 minutes of your life. The researchers were alarmed as this was double of what was previously estimated. What is more surprising is that “the average American spends up to 16 hours and 10 minutes per day across all of their screened devices combined1”. Time frittered away on screens thus translates into shortening life more than smoking two packs of cigarettes per day!
Not only do we shorten life well-lived, but like second-hand smoke, our screen use negatively affects those around us.
Granted some of this time is work or school-related, yet I cannot imagine that anyone deliberately wants to spend all these hours in a screen wasteland.
My personal average is much lower, but I have to ask myself, how much time of my life am I willing to sacrifice?
Too many words
Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?
-William Shakespeare, As You Like It
The articles I read on Substack are wonderful, thought-provoking, surprising, incisive, funny, engaging, and most certainly don’t feel like a waste of time. Yet there are simply too many words. I don’t want to know so much. Words start to lose their meaning when they are drowned in a continuous deluge of text.
I don’t want to lose my sense of wonder at words well said.
When I read on screens, I read too fast. It feels less satisfying, less weighty, and leaves me more tired than when I read off paper. But this is not just me, it’s simply the nature of how humans read off screens. We scan pages in an F pattern, and if we scroll, our eyes respond with a reflex that flits our gaze across constantly-moving text. Interestingly, reading in pixels rather than ink can simply be less enjoyable because it lacks the feel, look, and smell of paper.
I want to read more books2 and articles that I can hold in my hand. I have found a striking difference in my engagement with articles when I print them out to read3. I can underline things, ponder them, keep them for later reference.
I don’t want to know everything. I want to leave things unknown.
I don’t want to look up every question that comes to mind, but instead spend time pondering. When my youngest asks me a question, I want to first turn toward a reference book or a dictionary, not be quickly pacified by Google’s digested AI blancmange.
The voices in my head
You cannot hear music and noise at the same time.
-Henry David Thoreau
When I spend too much time on the internet, my inner voice takes the form of “online words” directed at “online people”. Thoughts flow in paragraphs, notes, or titles. I want my thought conversations to be directed at God, my husband, my children, my family and friends.
As a natural extrovert, I greatly enjoy interacting with readers and writers4; yet there are too many voices in my head that don’t matter.
At times I sense that my real-life activities get filtered through other writers’ perspectives or weighed in anecdotal value. Although I draw a firm boundary by not sharing too much of our private lives, that line is continuously challenged or blurred.
I have found myself in absurd situations this year, such as having to finish writing an article about nurturing real-life connections, while my friends were enjoying coffee and conversation in an adjacent room.
If I want to continue sharing valuable writing, I need less noise in my head and more time to make space for real voices.
The freedom of “don’t touch the computer days”
Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame.
-G.K. Chesterton
For the last two years, Peco and I have invited readers to join us for a digital fast during Lent. During a period of forty days, we would limit computer use and focus on “feasting on the Real”. However, practicing a weekly fast, where a whole day is spent away from the internet, helps to regularly reset, reframe, and jolt us out of a pattern of unhealthy dependence. In conversation with Dixie Dillon Lane last year, I jokingly referred to this practice as the “www” or “weekend without wifi”.
One of the most surprising effects of “do not touch the computer days” has been the realization of how much time I actually have. Whereas I often felt hurried to finish chores and prepare meals otherwise, I now seemed to have ample time to get the house in order, cook, and go for walks. The snippets of time spent on screens add up, and while they may only feel like a few minutes here or there, they sap energy and attention away from the tasks that could otherwise get done.
Tsh Oxenreider spent three months over the summer on an screen sabbath:
Extended digital breaks also provide a regular reminder that screens aren’t in charge of us. In The Common Rule, Justin Whitmel Early recommends turning off phones for one hour a day — not just silencing them or tossing them in a drawer, but actually powering them completely off. Why? To tangibly remind ourselves that we are in charge of our phones, they are not in charge of us. They are not taskmasters, dictating and commanding our hourly attention. So, too, with a long screen sabbath: powering down our screens tells both us and them that we — the human beings — are in charge of our attention. We control the screens, not the other way around.
Sometimes these sabbaths happen by force. Just as the Christmas holiday started, our 19-year old daughter’s phone self-destructed during an update. After experiencing some initial panic, she spent her days reading, baking, conversing, and enjoyed a focused attention she had not realized she had been missing. She also reported that she felt much less irritated and overall more patient. Once her phone was repaired a couple weeks later, she decided not to install any apps on it, instead choosing to check messages on her laptop. She had rediscovered cognitive liberty and has no plans to give it back up.
I don’t believe we are made for the internet. Yes, we can all agree that it can be a useful tool. But its tentacles ceaselessly pull us in unless we draw clear lines and commit ourselves to keeping our minds liberated. Were the internet a human being, their manipulative, possessive, and domineering nature would make us drop them like hot coals.
The beginning of a new year brings along with it a fresh focus on where we want to direct our attention, our mental energy, and the time we are given.
So I am breaking up with the internet. We can still be friends, but with clear boundaries. I am done with offering up daily slices of my life.
I have better things to do.
I would much prefer to discuss all these thoughts with you at our kitchen table over a cup of coffee. The next best thing would be for you to let me know that you are there — share your reflections in the comments, share the post with your friends, or simply give a like — so that my writing feels a bit more like a conversation and less like a soliloquy.
Until next time,
If you too are looking for better things to do, here is a helpful list of “simple acts of sanity”.
If you would like some practical guidance in “breaking up with the internet”, here is a digital fasting game plan based on Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism.
Please share your thoughts and reflections in the comments:
Do you lose all sense of time when you are on a screen? If you limit yourself, how do you do it?
How much content is too much content for you?
Do you find your mind preoccupied with online content even when you are away from screens?
Upcoming in the Unconformed Education section:
I’ll be sharing some details of my homeschool schedules and daily routines this month. If this is of interest to you, turn on your notifications for the Unconformed Education section here.
Worthwhile Reading for the New Year
Where the Magic Doesn’t Happen by Andy Crouch for After Babel
New Year's Resolution: Bring Back The Aunties and Imago Dei by Mary Harrington
The Need for Adults by Freya India
Are Social Media Platforms the Next Dying Malls? by Ted Gioia
Come and join us on a Camino Pilgrimage!
We’d love to meet you in person! Why not join my husband Peco and I and Dixie Dillon Lane on an eleven-day pilgrimage on the Camino in Spain from June 14-24? Space is limited, so reserve your spot now :) You can read all about it here or download the brochure here.We would love for you to join us in visiting historic sites, sharing meals, building relationships, all while hiking through a naturally and spiritually inspiring landscape.
According to the Omni Social Media Time Alternative Calculator, even just spending one hour per day on social media translates into 73 books that you could have read per year. Here you can calculate what you are missing over the course of a year.
I’ll be joining Simon Haisell’s slow reads for War and Peace and Wolf Hall. I have also added some books to my reading pile from Joel J Miller’s classics reading goal for 2025.
This is why I include a pdf download for many of our long-form posts for those who enjoy reading off paper rather than the screen. I am hoping that Hamish McKenzie/ Mills, ℭ𝔬𝔫𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔟𝔩𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔔𝔲𝔞𝔩𝔦𝔞 might consider an on-platform pdf conversion function for the thousands of readers who think this would be a splendid idea…
I’ll continue to connect with readers and writers, but only during my morning “office hour”.
Just wanted to say how much I love the artwork in your articles. The paintings give such a sense of peace and non-digitalness (even though they're coming through pixels!) that they inspire me to put into practice all the suggestions here.
Ruth, thanks for this. I needed a bit of a wakeup call today. I have done fairly well (no social media, no apps, etc...) but when I get on Substack time just disappears. I really hope they implement that print to PDF function because then I could just print my inbox and go read away from the screen. Blessings to you and yours in this new year. I really wish I could swing the Camino trip. It has been on my bucket list forever.