The Internet Detox

The Internet Detox

Non-profit and free for redistribution
Written on September 1st | 2016
Published on September 1st | 2016

For entertainment and research purposes only

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DISCLAIMER
The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others.

The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only.

Please visit our blog for more PDFs and information: https://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/

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Contents
DISCLAIMER	2
Preface	4
Starting Simple	5
Slightly More Difficult	6
Learn to Ignore	7
Idle Hands…	8

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Preface

Whether your biological clock is screwed up and you’re suffering from IAD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_addiction_disorder) or that nasty artificial blue light(http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side), a lot of people have many reasons as to why they’d like to learn how to lessen their online use. Like, for example, some people will want to lessen it because it’s distracting them from important responsibilities or some people want to lessen it because of their data plans

Regardless of the reason: You need to detox.

Learning to take a break from the internet and technology altogether for at least an hour a day can help you greatly reduce your stress be it physical or mental. It can also help you learn to not so readily rely on technology or the internet to do such frivolous things like research, socialize or try to remember a song’s lyrics.

The physical wellness aspect alone is a great reason to take a break, especially with eye strain, popcorn brain(https://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/06/23/tech.popcorn.brain.ep/index.html), the strain on your back or even your posture. However these things are minor when you take into account that war is becoming less about bloodshed and explosives and more about societal contagions, ruining the other side’s technology (https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/12/17/russian-general-says-new-weapons-will-neutralize-us-shield.html) and grinding infrastructure to a halt.

It doesn’t matter if you can’t win a ground battle or the enemy starts picking up guerilla tactics, they’ve no internet, electricity or phone. The modern man will have great difficulty, especially if they’re from the West, if the internet is dead.

And that’s why you, the average user, should look into lessening your dependency on the internet and take a break every so often, even if it is a micro-break.

The internet won’t always be in the West’s hands, especially since Obama is trying his hardest to allow non-US entities to take over ICANN (https://archive.fo/H7vhz). This means you’ll have an increased likelihood of upsetting someone (who’s thin skinned) and breaking some obscure law where you’ll end up fine, having your internet cut, or worse…

So, if you’re interested, for any reason, read on!

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Starting Simple

No matter the reason, taking a break from both the internet and technology can be quite helpful in both saving time and reducing your stress. Some people simply carry too much stress because of how their posture is or because they’re obsessed with keeping tabs on their internet profile a bit too much.

The simplest thing to do without going cold turkey would be to set at least four hours aside a day in your schedule. It doesn’t matter if you’ll use these four hours or not. Just setting them aside will be a great accomplishment as you know you’re somewhat committed to reducing your internet consumption.

Now purchase yourself a journal or notebook. Doesn’t matter if it’s college rule or not. You’ll be using it to keep a diary of your internet use. This will help you organize your day and how much time you’ve spent online.

During the day, as you use the internet, regardless for what reason, make a note of how long you spent on it. Once the day is over,and you aren’t bothered with school or work anymore for that period of time, add up how much time you’ve spent on the internet.

Keep this tally of time spent every day, for we want to see just how much time we’ve spent online. As we tally up the minutes to hours spent, we want to take each hour of time spent online and reward ourselves with 15 minutes of time spent away from the internet.

Think of it as this way: Every four hours equals an hour of time you need to spend offline.

We aren’t telling you to cut your computer time or TV time, for now. Simply spending time with the modem unplugged will help condition your mind to understand you don’t always need to be connected.

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Slightly More Difficult

We all know that, to an extent, technology, especially computers, produce some radiation. These EMFs may not cause any health issues, which we know of, however there exists much concern about it. There are always studies conducted by the WHO (https://www.who.int/peh-emf/about/WhatisEMF/en/index1.html), among other groups, who want to assuage the public’s concerns and fears.

If there are health issues or not, it doesn’t hurt to step up your detox regiment after awhile to include turning off your computer and phone for a few minutes to an hour a day. Think of it as simply quieting the devices around you so that you can have a bit of “me time” and relax without interruptions.

Unlike the previous chapter, it may seem boring to not use the computer or your phone. You could watch some TV, or go outside… maybe read a book?

You know, supposedly reading a book helps you live longer (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/08/09/the-best-reason-for-reading-book-lovers-live-longer-say-scientists/).

Adding that to your hour (or more) break from the internet and internet connected devices could help you relax even more and even expand your mind. Doesn’t matter your choice of reading material, just spending less time online and not using internet connected devices can help you worry less about what others say online.

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Learn to Ignore

If there’s one thing that hinders people and prolongs their addiction to the internet it’s the fact they can’t let go of the digital discourse. You’ve people who spent years trying to dox or belittle someone that they believe wronged them, no matter how silly their reason.

This “discourse” is nothing but internet drama, which means it’s useless and doesn’t matter. The miniscule portion of the world’s populace that sees something saying something bad about you, or someone you’re currently acquainted with, is so tiny that it’s near impossible for it to affect your life offline, especially if you followed the Paranoid’s Bible (and other guides) and lessened your data footprint.

Yes, it doesn’t matter.

And no, your ego or so called disorder doesn’t excuse the fact that you, the reader, may just be a tad too obsessed with arbitrary numbers and digital discourse. Take a deep, slow breath through your nose, exhale through your mouth and learn to ignore what others think.

Not everyone is going to like you, share the same opinions or even care about what you have to say. And guess what, this is a fact of life you can’t ignore or try to remove through lashing out in a semi-psychotic manner.

Learn that the internet is not life, and social media isn’t socializing.

Go outside, join a club or group activity… take a few hours away from the internet and learn to forgive, forget and ignore.

The amount of time that we, as a society, waste on petty online arguments could be better used and spent on learning useful skills or trades, like carpentry or farming. Don’t waste your time, energy and brain power on something as idiotic as trying to prove someone wrong over useless opinions like who’s the best character from a show.

Learn to ignore…

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Idle Hands…

Remember what we said about learning a trade? It doesn’t help to pick one up or get into a hobby. If you’re idle and grow bored, you seek to either fill time with the internet or excessive eating. Don’t fall into this trap of modern life, learn to self discipline yourself and take up an mindless activity like knitting or sewing. Learn a trade like carpentry or metallurgy. Learn a skill that can help you in the long run of your life.

If you can’t or don’t want to pick a trade or a hobby, exercise. Take a walk. Lift some weights. Do some cardio. Do something that isn’t fueled by technology and electricity. By wasting all your time not dedicated to school or work on the computer or glued to a smart phone you end up putting yourself into a vicious cycle where you’ve less energy, gain weight and look quite sickly.

Try to pace yourself with technology and learn to not use it so much. While many will throw up the newspaper or radio and how people became glued to those, we’re simply not talking about those. We’re talking about today’s day and age. We need to pull ourselves away from the technology for a handful of minutes or hours and try to detox so we don’t become too reliant on the internet or technology in general.

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Afterword

This isn’t about taking your toys away from your or the idiocy of social media. It’s about helping you learn to not be so reliant on technology. It’s about helping you improve your health and lessen your overall stress. It’d also help you stay ahead of the curve in case anything happens to the West’s infrastructure. It should concern you how we don’t have any redundancies in place or backups in case technology and/or electricity gets knocked out somehow.

The West’s infrastructure is quite horrendous and a handful of people can ruin a city’s phone and electricity quite easily. This means they can ruin the internet, too. If this happens you’ll have a hard time coping. Learn to further yourself with a trade or useful skill. It doesn’t hurt to be in better physical or mental health than the average person, either.