True To You: A Week w/o Internet

Hello everyone!

Guys. I'm almost done. I really can't believe it.

Caroline and I were talking the other day and we realized how this challenge flew by. Not gonna lie, there were definitely times when I felt like this week was never going to end, but as a whole, I have had more positive days than negative ones.

While I'm not going to give all my concluding thoughts on the challenge right now, I do want to take this time and just clarify something that Caroline touched on yesterday.

The No Internet Challenge was an idea born through the frustration of Caroline and I. We noticed that the internet can be a big puddle of negativity and we both saw how that negativity directly affected our lives. However, because of this challenge, Caroline and I realized how the Internet also has positive aspects to it. Living in two different states separated by a couple hundred miles, Caroline and I can only communicate through the internet and our phones. If it weren't for Facetime, Google Hangouts, Skype, and other like platforms, Caroline and I would have no way of being able to talk to each other face-to-face.

So for this challenge, I want to particularly stress the point that neither Caroline nor myself want to demonize the internet or the use of the internet. We both realize how it has tremendously helped us in our friendship and we are very grateful for that.

However, I think what we have discovered is that the internet is a tool. It's important that we don't give it more power than that. When people see the internet as a tool, and nothing more, it's easier to prioritize different aspects of your life and not let the internet dominate your free time. If that makes sense... I guess what I'm trying to say is a tool can be used to benefit a person or hurt a person. While all tools are intended for good purposes, often times people find ways of abusing the intended purpose of that tool. Get my point? :P When we let the internet dictate our lives and we become obsessed with how many retweets we get on Twitter, or how many likes we get on Instagram, we are abusing the intended purpose of the internet and social media. The internet and social media are supposed to be platforms where people can talk to one another. The internet was not intended for people to waste so much time that they no longer have time to foster real friendships outside of the internet.

I think a good rule of thumb for the internet is that whenever the internet is taking up so much of your time, or affecting your mood that it changes the way you interact with people in your daily life, it's good to take a break. I don't think it's bad to take a break from the internet, on the contrary. I think it is healthy for people to unplug and really focus on their mental and physical health. And that's exactly what Caroline and I have been able to do while participating in this challenge.

Wow...that ended up being way longer than what I intended it to be. Anyway, here's today's vlog!