Why I Finally Unplugged on a Sunny Saturday

Cruz Gatlin
@gatlincruz5370
18 days ago

I am addicted to my phone. There, I said it. Last Saturday, I woke up, grabbed my phone, and spent two hours scrolling through memes and bad news before I even brushed my teeth. My brain felt like it had been put through a blender.

So I did something drastic. I turned my phone off, put it in a drawer, and walked out of my apartment. No map, no playlist, no camera. Just me and the streets of Labadi.

I ended up at the beach. I sat on the sand and watched the waves for an hour. I noticed things I never see—the way the foam fizzes like soda, the call of a lone seagull, a group of kids playing football with a deflated ball. They were laughing so hard, one of them fell and didn't even stop smiling.

I struck up a conversation with an old fisherman mending his net. He told me about a storm in 1999 that swept half his boat away. He told me his son works in London now, but he prefers the salt and the silence. 'The sea talks to you,' he said, 'but only if you are quiet enough to listen.'

I stayed until sunset. When I got back home and turned on my phone, I had 47 notifications. I deleted all of them without reading a single one. It felt like freedom.

I'm not saying I'll throw my phone into the ocean. But I've started scheduling one 'unplugged' day a week. It's hard at first, but then something shifts. The world gets bigger, slower, more colorful. My thoughts get quieter.

Try it. Just one Saturday. The internet will still be there when you get back.

#studentsupport #joyofafrica