I don’t know about you, but my smartphone sometimes seems like Grand Central Station at rush hour. Between texts, emails, regular old phone calls, and notifications from multiple social media sites, keeping up with all the inputs can feel like a full-time job. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I passed a full 12 hours without checking my phone at least once.

Talking about taking a break from the Internet (gasp!) raises a few important questions: Has technology transformed from a convenience into a curse? And is disconnecting an important life strategy for making constant communication sustainable, or is it just the latest tech trend?

Why It’s Not So Great

These withdrawal symptoms suggest there must be some benefits to being “plugged in” all the time, right? For many people, the allure of being attached to a smartphone is the ability to keep tabs on family, friends, and breaking news whenever, wherever. In some cases, the downsides to keeping phones and computers switched on 24/7 could outweigh the benefits. Multitasking—perhaps this generation’s Great White Whale—almost never boosts productivity. In fact, it’s usually just a form of procrastination that distracts us from what’s important and inhibits the formation of short-term memories.

Constantly checking social media sites, work emails, and texts from far-flung friends sounds like it’s fostering connectivity, but the opposite is often true. Studies show spending tons of time online can actively harm relationships, interpersonal communication skills, and mental health. But at the end of the day, browsing photos from other people’s fun times is not the same as attending those parties and picnics and hanging out with friends in the flesh.

How Unplugging Helps

In the past, people could “switch off” after work by simply going home or avoid dealing with dramatic friends by not picking up the phone. But smartphones, social media, and the expectation that everyone should be available all the time have made taking a breather much more difficult. If multitasking and constant email cause a lack of productivity, negatively impact social relationships, and increase overall stress, can simply abstaining from using technology reverse these negative consequences? The simple answer, according to most research, is “yes.”

Even brief activities such as taking a short walk (sans phone, of course), spending time in nature, or daydreaming can help the brain reboot.

The Internet and mobile communication have grown by impressive leaps and bounds in the past ten years, largely to our society’s benefit. But because we’re used to tech companies rolling out a new (and better!) product or software every week, we’ve been operating under the idea that “more is more”—more communication is good, more social media sites are better, and, above all, the ability to contact anyone at anytime is best of all.

But this behaviour might be unsustainable. Keeping up with email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other sites 24/7 can be exhausting, bad for our brains, bad for our relationships, and bad for our productivity. Instead of fading out like many transient trends, perhaps it would be better if the concept of “unplugging” catches on even more and helps us tech junkies develop new protocols for how to communicate and connect (without going crazy) in the Internet Age.

Versuasion Pakistan -Fareeha Robert