The benefits of going offline

If you’re offline, you’ll miss out on life, right? We’re here to remind you that being online all the time is not always good for your creativity, relationships or health.

The time has come to free your mind, to look up from the screen in front of you and to see the real world again, to exchange a smile (yes, a real smile, not an emoji) with a real person. Try and reclaim your time and pick up that long-lost hobby again. Update your state, not your status, and disconnect from the world on your screen and reconnect with the real world.

Taking your mind off Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and all those blogs most of us follow so religiously follow will help us to rediscover the creativity that we have lost in a maze of ideas. According to entrepreneur and writer Jeff Stephens, following others is one of four daily mistakes that kill creativity. Excessive consumption of information limits your creativity, as it leads to decision fatigue and is harmful to our attention span.

Also, spending so much time on social media makes us less social and even unaware of the real world and the very real people in it. According to CMX, an organisation that equips a global movement of community professionals, it’s worth putting in some effort to build communities in the offline world, as this creates real connectedness, respect and better feedback between people.

According to an article published by Amy E Mark and Ian Janssen in the Journal Of Public Health, screen time, apart from the strain on your eyes and the fact that you’re being static when you could have gone for a run, also makes you more susceptible to metabolic syndrome. The great sin is not being in front of a screen, but being static in front of a screen.

So why not forget about a world of status updates, throwback Thursdays and you-have-to-see-this video clips for a while? Reclaim your time and get active – for the sake of your health so that you can enjoy the things you used to enjoy, like enjoying good coffee and the person in front of you, reading a (real!) book by your favourite author or enjoying a long, invigorating walk on the beach.

PHOTO: iStock/Ivanko_Brnjakovic