Working as a digital wellbeing consultant, coach and counsellor I come across the idea of complete unplugging almost all the time. The conversations around digital wellbeing are almost fixated on the idea of switching off the Internet…as if our online identities and belongings were clearly defined online and very separated from our offline reality.
Well, that’s simply not the case.
Our brains perceive online experiences just as real as offline ones. We build valuable relationships and nurture them offline and online. We feel, think and communicate in a multitude of realities that by now are very tightly interwoven, so I fail to see how unplugging and waiting for the work, messages and information to pile up would help?
What is the alternative, you say?
It’s not rocket science but we need to accept that the online parts of our identity, connections and behaviours matter. Then we can look across all those signals, organise ourselves, plan transitions, explore the impact and make some very well informed choices about what it really means to take time off… and what we are unplugging from.
