Quitting Internet
Great interview with Aziz Ansari on Quitting the Internet in GQ magazine, where he shares why he deleted almost every app from his phone:
Whenever you check for a new post on Instagram or whenever you go on The New York Times to see if there’s a new thing, it’s not even about the content. It’s just about seeing a new thing. You get addicted to that feeling. You’re not going to be able to control yourself. So the only way to fight that is to take yourself out of the equation and remove all these things.
I very much agree and unfortunately I’m prone to this as well.
I wanted to stop that thing where I get home and look at websites for an hour and a half, checking to see if there’s a new thing. And read a book instead. I’ve been doing it for a couple months, and it’s worked. I’m reading, like, three books right now. I’m putting something in my mind. It feels so much better than just reading the Internet and not remembering anything.
I’m trying to get mature and evolve as a person. Even cutting out the Internet and social-media stuff, and reading more, is a good step in the right direction.
This is an approach I really like: you don’t have to swap a habit with something that’s perfect, you only have to swap it for something that is a little bit better. This is gradual improvement, and if you do that every day, it will add up quickly.