During the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s been very common to see people sharing their “quarantine projects” – things people are doing to pass the time and try to be productive during this era when so many things are unknown, and while the world is seemingly at a standstill. While we are seeing things open back up and the world start to move forward again, there is still a lot of isolation that will continue to plague our day-to-day lives for a long time to come. While people’s quarantine projects are common to see shared and bragged about, it’s easy to feel discouraged; like you’re doing nothing to be productive and make good use of your extra free time. However, what you may find by the end of this process is that you’ve made a positive change in your life that you didn’t even realize you were making. This was the case with me, and I think a lot of other people should feel less discouraged or guilty because they didn’t write the next King Lear (often claimed to have been written by William Shakespeare while the Bubonic Plague struck Europe between the early 1300s and the late 1600s) during their extended time off. I felt like I was being lazy and unmotivated at the beginning of the shutdown, but I needed someone to remind me that everyone is processing this crisis differently. It was only then that I realized my project has been getting through every day and getting a handle on my mental health. So many friends approached me in the early days of the shutdown, expressing how lost they were feeling; how they were feeling hopeless, alone, depressed, and on the verge of a breaking point. I reminded everyone who approached me with this concern that they were not alone; that they were not just one of a few people feeling this way. I reminded them that it’s not just everyone in our community feeling this way; not just everyone in the state feeling this way; not just everyone in the country. Everyone in the world was feeling the exact same way my friends and I were feeling, and that’s understandable. We were not feeling just isolation and loneliness. We were all feeling loneliness, fear, sadness, panic, and in a sense, mourning for the loss of the lives we once knew. Had there been a definite end date for this crisis, things would have been different, but not knowing when it would end meant that we were essentially losing everything we knew; our entire lives were thrown into chaos and uncertainty. This, I reminded my friends and myself, was the exact reason we should not feel bad about being unproductive. Our productivity as a people has been survival. Anything else has been extra.
One of the best things about having so much time to myself has been experimenting with different habits and finding ways to live the healthiest and most fulfilling life I can. Doing this is difficult in a fast-moving world, because what makes you happy isn’t always the stability of your baseline mental health. Being alone for an extended period allows us to pull back all the layers of external, environmental impacts on our mood, and it’s a very revealing experience. I discovered, when I had a chance to really evaluate myself under quarantine-induced scrutiny, that there were a lot of things in my life that are unhealthy. For one, I use far too much technology. As a result, limiting my use of technology has become my “quarantine project.”
I am very proud of the amount I’ve been able to cut back on my phone and computer usage as of late. I’ve set limits on the amount of time I can spend in each app on my phone, and I’ve deleted everything from my phone that I can access on my computer. This makes it easier for me to simply “walk away.” Having social media tied into your phone means it’s difficult to put your phone down to get away from being constantly connected. You want to be reachable, but you also don’t want to be constantly plugged in. This is something I found when I had a chance to do some experimentation with my overall tech use, and separating these two parts of being a technology user has been immensely helpful in curbing my phone addiction. From my phone, I’ve deleted Facebook, Reddit, Quora, and all other social media apps that don’t require my phone to use (i.e. Snapchat and Instagram). I’ve set limits on how long I can use apps that I did leave – Snapchat, Instagram, email, all shopping apps, etc. – and I’ve set my phone to be locked down except for essential apps between 10 am and 7 pm.
How am I getting the news? I’ve been reading it! I recently bought a subscription to our local newspaper, and I have been making a point to refrain from reading or watching the news online or watching the news on television. I like to have my news all in front of me so I can throw it away when I feel like I’ve digested all the necessary information. This helps me prevent an “information overload,” which often leads to panic, especially in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. It’s important to stay updated, but it’s also important to strike a good balance between learning the information and hearing it many times, the latter of which can cause obsession and anxiety.
Altogether, I think my experiment with limiting technology has been a hugely successful one. I feel less anxious, less envious of others’ lives, and I feel like I have the capacity to get back to enjoying real human experiences more fully. Reading has been something that I’ve long desired to be fanatical about (or interested in, at the very least). My constant connectivity over the years has put a significant damper on my ability to enjoy relaxing activities like it, and I’m excited to enjoy living life away from a screen for the first time in a very long time.
“I think we need to put our phones down and start living life again.”
– Chris Porter
Ben Crouch, Writer, Cellist, Teacher, and Conductor; Contact Ben; Facebook: /jbencrouchmusic; About Ben
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