How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?

I am presuming that this question is asking about unplugging from unnecessary technology, like my phone and laptop, and not necessary technology such as my wheelchair and bed. And I don’t think this is a stretch in the modern world to also interpret this question as unplugging from the internet, and in all honesty, this is not a simple decision for me to make.

I have written before about how the internet provides me with invaluable access to the world as a disabled person in a highly inaccessible world. Therefore, unplugging from the services that provide me with this, is also unplugging from this accessibility. That is not to say I haven’t found this necessary for me to do at times, as we know people on the internet are not always good. I personally prefer to say that people on the internet can be toxic, rather than the internet itself can be toxic. This distinction is important to me.

But I suppose I make the decision about whether I need a break the same way anyone else does, or should. By if talking to one specific person or group of people is beginning to cause me emotional harm. I often make the decision to mute them or the post they are commenting on, this is a frequent occurrence with some reactions to my Facebook campaign. Occasionally I may choose to also mute a relevant group, if a few people within it are causing emotional issues to me, or to mute a person if they are messaging me privately. If I find that many people within a group are frustrating me, and I have no necessity to be in that group, as I do have with being in my local Facebook Group, I may leave the group altogether.

I make an appropriate decision with how to deal with the individuals involved in causing me harm, and I do not blame the whole platform for the actions of individuals within it. It would take a specific unavoidable incident for me to leave a platform altogether for any length of time, and this has rarely happened.

When this does happen, I have a way of locking the apps, so that I cannot go on them without actively choosing to. As I think checking some social media platforms is a habit that is often done without thought. By doing this I then have to make the active choice to be on that platform when I am ready to be present on it again.

All this is to say, you should make your own decisions on the way you choose or not choose to use anything you want to use. And not be influenced by ideas of what you may have been told it means to unplug. Just as is it your choice to decide when to do it, it is your choice to decide how you want to do it.