Slightly before starting to quarantine due to COVID-19 this March, I was coming back from a hectic travel schedule to some conflicting feelings of loneliness while needing alone time. I was carrying a burden of general lack of inspiration and confusion about my life direction, layered with anxiety over the state of the world. Luckily for me, isolation is a place of peace and prosperity—a world of deep contemplation and creative work. Without intervals of social interactions to recharge, however, and I do not mean on the internet, the cherished solitude soon becomes a place of hardship, longing, and restlessness. And that is exactly what happened.
There is no generation that has ever been more connected to those around them due to technology than in our current times, yet there has also never been one lonelier. This is not to overlook the positive impacts social media has on society, such as making our big world seem small, allowing us to make a large number of friends in a short amount of time, fostering empathy from others, speeding up communications, helping us build relationships in both love and friendship, and giving us a way to find common ground with total strangers.
Indeed, the virtualization of friendships and connections on online platforms is the new social interaction and texting each other while in the same room is the new normal. I sometimes tease my friends for wanting to chat IRL (in real life), while we just spent hours texting! A suggestion I find facetious considering that we would not repeat our messaged conversation but continue from where we left off, meaning that texting does do the trick! But only 2 months into quarantine and I realize how truly valuable and exceptional conversations with friends IRL, even the short and dull ones, are!
This moment of mass confinement sees us grappling with a sudden sense of irrelevance, of being restrained. Obviously, Isolation can leave us pacing like caged animals, measuring the dimensions of the rooms that contain us. As a result, like many others, I turned to the media. I started watching the news all day long, feeling a strange sense of warmth and comfort at the circulating reminder and hashtag alone together. With the internet and social media, we embrace entertainment, disguised as companionship distracting from our loneliness, but really just over-flooding us with information and not adding that much value to our lives, except in the ways I mentioned above.
Data from GlobalWebIndex indicates that 47% of internet users aged 16-64 across 17 countries are spending 23% longer on social media with a surge in social media app usage, from 20.8% of total mobile app usage early in the year to 24.1% since mid-March when lock-down started. Constantly reaching for, or fondling our phones, we have grown an addiction to instant gratification and quick pleasure laughs and smiling but for all the wrong reasons. And If we normally turn to our devices without thinking during life’s amazing moments, it makes sense that we would collectively do the same during these quarantine days of unintended solitude.
Being busy – being part of the vigorous activity of daily life – is like a code for being important, needed, and wanted. So, a couple of weeks into quarantine, I experienced numerous nervous breakdowns. I was feeling useless, irritable, restless, and completely trapped. And those who know me well would agree, this last one spells out recipe for disaster for me. On top of that, the rising death toll I insisted on staying up to date with through watching the news, reading related columns, and watching YouTube conspiracy videos was increasingly toxic and driving me up the wall. Making me jumpy and terrified each time I, or someone around me would cough.
Turning to social media for distraction further aggravated my mental health. It is almost impossible to be on social media and not compare one’s happiness and quality of life based on what others post, even if unconsciously. But it was the endless Instagram challenges that became a real catalyst for re-evaluation of my relationship with my smartphone. Yes, I missed my friends but keeping up with them and their Instagram challenges was not making me feel any less lonely or isolated, and neither was login in into virtual worlds online. It was time to turn to my secret remedy for everything – nature.
To limit the time that I spend scrolling through social media, I started leaving my phone in a different room. I wouldn’t watch news for days at a time. After weeks of a very restful routine - reading, writing, thinking, lying around drinking tea and doing 'nothing' for many a peaceful hour, floating in the pool watching the clear blue sky of Abuja - I realize just how developmental all this has been. Isolation coupled with a social media hiatus is not just time alone. It is also a personal turnaround, a re-alignment of identity and a reassessment of habits that undermine our very sense of self.
In quieter times, I discovered the presence of all the things I miss in my hurry. I added more steps into my skincare and hair care routines. I noticed some of my toxic mental processes during my now extended meditation sessions. I shared some quality time with my family. Quarantine provided me with loads of benefits! I feel full of vital and imaginative energy and am happy to be back to my creative projects. However, I understand not everyone was fortunate enough to be with family during these hard times, and I am grateful for the comforts and amenities my parents are providing me with. Still, I encourage everyone to embrace isolation without the distraction from social media even if for a short while. Go on and savor the simple pleasures of life like sitting in the garden, laying in the sun, going on nature walks, watching all the sunsets, and stargazing.
I experienced for myself that amid nature, there is no loneliness, only wholeness and an infinitely increasing completeness. And no number of likes, comments, followers, or admiration from online friends can ever compare to one deep and genuine relationship with a real human away from the screen. These months during which many of us cannot see our loved ones, friends, and family, and feel comforted by virtual connections and virtual hangouts, is probably a taste of what is going to be our new reality after COVID-19 – a slightly more distant and lonelier world than it was before.
It is undeniably fun to be connected on social media, and other online communities, but it is important to remember that there is a whole world that exists offline, waiting for us to explore it. I now make it a priority of mine to be present with nature and the universe, sensitive to the details and fragrances of the outside world, alone or with a loved one, undistracted by my devices.
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