In the Spring 2014 edition of Facts in Trends Marty Duren, manager of social media strategies for LifeWay, suggests that everyone needs to engage in a digital detox. According to Duren, a digital detox involves completely abstaining from “everything online for a period of time” (p.45). While stopping short of prescribing the interval at which detoxes are required or the duration he recommends, Duren clearly believes that everyone who participates in the online world needs to take time for regular digital detoxes.
So What?
When anything in life takes over your life, detox can be a helpful way forward. While I agree that there can be benefits from fasting from specific social media or even all online activity for a period of time, I don’t think such is necessary for all participants in the online world at all, much less on a regular basis.
Just as I don’t detox/abstain from other normal parts of my world when they play the role I intend and when such a role is appropriate, I won’t detox/abstain from online activity just because a set amount of time has passed since the last time I did so. I also don’t plan to detox/abstain from life offline by forgoing any interaction with humans or other living things in order to focus on life online. If any area of my life online or offline becomes toxic or all consuming, then I will seek help for such.
What is your response to the idea that everyone needs to detox from the online world on a regular basis?