My surprisingly easy, self-inflicted Media Sabbath

So were the fateful words of the “Moving Forward” section of my Forward Day by Day booklet that I got from my local Episcopalian Church, which inspired me to take a break from technology for a whole week. Why, you may ask, would anyone want to avoid technology for a whole week in the middle of 2020, let alone a technology geek like me? The answer is simple: because I’ve already done it enough.

You see, as a millennial and someone with autism, I’ve been especially fascinated by the computers and the internet. I’ve even been using a computer since I was four years old. (Granted, it was mainly to play children’s educational computer games, but still.) I’ve always gotten a rush whenever I find fun information about a favorite topic, or finally completed something on it. However, when I’m just mindlessly clicking around, I technically do receive happiness, but it’s mainly superficial happiness. Not the genuine happiness that comes from living a full life.

This was even a bigger issue when I was younger. I would spend a lot of my free time on it, and was so expectant of it, that I would expect to use it a lot every day. I would get fixated and hooked on favorite websites as well. (Neopets was a pretty nasty offender.) Whenever I would go to the doctor’s on a school day (which I did an awful lot to take care of my autism symptoms) and not get home until later, I would freak out and have an autistic meltdown. Once, I had a doctor’s appointment on the exact same day I was going to Ellis Island- I would be in thee different states, but only briefly at home. Naturally, I was very nervous about this.

Nowadays, it’s much easier for me to avoid the internet, if only because I feel bad for being so hooked in college- especially the final semester when I was in the middle of a “senior slump,” not helped by the fact that I was finally getting the freedom from living on campus for the first time in a year. I feel as though I need to counterbalance days with heavy internet use by either limiting it other days or even going cold turkey.

There was even an incident last Christmas that showed how I can surprisingly, maturely handle punishments.

You see, last Christmas I had plans to hang out with a neighbor, a sweet Irish grandmother, over Christmas (long story), however, I forgot to read the fine print- only if she was around for Christmas. Because it was so early in the Christmas season (it was still November when she made the offer, and not even Thanksgiving) plans for the holidays weren’t really set in stone. So when I found she had an invitation to be with a relative over the holidays, I freaked out. After a really nasty autistic meltdown (the less said about it, the better), I ran off to my local care unit and told them that my parents kicked me out of the house. After the police drove me back (my sister had her favorite video cassette on in the living room; there was no hiding it from my parents) my mother decided to take away my Chromebook, and not give it back unless I was good for three whole days.

I did bargain with my parents, because I wanted to post and see my friends’ posts for Christmas that year. However, I eventually caved in when I realized they weren’t backing down anytime soon, and that I could handle my punishment- after all, even I realized I kind of deserved it after what I’d done.

Unlike the above incident, however, my media sabbath was completely voluntary. (Technically it was suggested by my little book, but I could’ve chosen to ignore the advice and stayed on the internet.) Naturally, it made me feel a lot better about myself and my own life. My own mother knows a young man who took a media sabbath similar to mine, though he did it for a whole year, something I could never push myself to really do. Now, he gets straight A’s and has a nice job and his life altogether.

I’m not saying that technology and the internet is bad by itself, in fact they can be used in helpful constructive ways, which is why both my parents have special “work stations” for theirs. I’m just pointing out that negative impacts its addictive qualities impacted my life, and how I worked to stop them from ruining it.