How interesting that, in English, we use the verb “to unplug” to describe a type of self-care. I just double-checked and don’t have any power cords dangling from my body. Where did this idiom come from?
The OED suggests the term first came into use in the early 1990s to describe a decision to refrain from using electronic devices and, more recently, social media. I was approaching the age of thirty around then, and I’m pretty confident that the term originated earlier: in the late ’70s when kids were glued to their Atari, Intellivision, and Colecovision. (But then it would make sense that ‘unplug’ would appear in the media when those very kids became adults busy writing articles on culture.) Walk behind the TV and pull the plug. There. Now go outside and play. Today, we have to go to great lengths to “unplug”.
I can delete my social media, but can I put my PC back into its box and shut off my phone and put it into a drawer? For many people, doing so would mean loss of employment. Today, there are degrees of unplugging. Some people take vacations and bring their laptops and phones with them. Others drive to a remote area without cell service and set up camp for a while. Then there are those who come home after work, put their phones on silent, and sit in meditation for 15 minutes.
Eleven years ago, I decided to delete my social media, specifically Facebook. I was isolating, lonely, and falling deeper into depression. Instead of calling a friend and getting together for social contact, I logged-in and viewed their posts. It seemed to satisfy my need for human contact but it wasn’t real. I realized that I wasn’t interacting with people; I was interacting only with my screen. And when I left social media, I also cut lines of contact with those people. A year ago, I was invited to a community gathering and told to keep an eye on their private Facebook group for announcements. Well, I had no choice if I wanted to partake, so I created a new profile. I have only a few friends and family, but a couple of days ago an old friend I haven’t seen in 25 years added me, and we’re catching up. Social media has its upside.
There is a sad reality of today: if you’re not on social media, you’re out of the loop. People my age and older have the luxury of being able to maintain social bonds without social media. We grew up without it, and we learned from early childhood how to nurture relationships without it because it didn’t yet exist. I feel bad for young people today: they suffer total life capture from social media.
Today, I can unplug without it costing me much if anything at all. Being out of the loop for a while is often very healthy. It is frequently a negative feedback loop. As the poem which inspired the title of this blog states, “I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water…”.
The Peace of Wild Things 