There is no doubt we live in a digital age. Even as I sit here in one of the buildings writing this, nearly everyone in here is on their phone. For crying out loud, I’m writing this on a computer! There is no escape!

In all seriousness, our electronic age is taking a mental toll on all of us. Electronics and the digital age was partly responsible for my infamous Mental Breakdown of 2k16. It wasn’t until I truly sat down and thought about my major stressors that I realized our world of connectivity was making it hard to breathe. It seemed like everyone was up in my business and that, no matter how desperately I wanted to escape, my number was permanently locked in to concrete walls of the Internet.

One of the easiest, minimalist, and generally healthier changes you can make to your life is cutting out electronics (which is difficult, I know). At first, it’s going to suck not having certain things in your life but once you disconnect yourself from that addiction, you will feel pounds lighter.

Start by sifting through your social media. Social media is one of the worst contributors to anxiety and depression (and it’s been verified by the American Psychiatric Association). I remember frantically updating, changing and contorting myself in to all sorts of ways trying to find the perfect lighting and the perfect angle. To me, breaking 100 likes on Instagram was the most important thing I could do. I became so stressed over what I looked like and how I was perceived by my peers that I used to get intense anxiety over it. Don’t be me!

A lot of the issue is your comparison of yourself to others when, in actuality, it is important to note that everyone is putting their best selves forward. Nobody is going to be willing to post that they got an F on a test, or that they’re $25,000 in debt in school loans (guilty). Yet for some reason, we as a society feel the need to constantly be competing and one-upping each other, especially on social media. A big part of minimizing and simplifying your life is focusing on only you, not the people around you.

On a more physical note, the advancement in electronics and media and digital upgrades has led to an increase in new and different tools. While it’s cool you still have a SEGA Genesis, you don’t need that and two PlayStations, three Xboxes, an NES, and a Nintendo DS. My family literally had two PlayStation 2s. TWO. We could only use one at a time, and yet we had TWO clogging up the undercarriage of our TV with an unholy amount of wires. You need to simplify and upgrade your life the same way technology is constantly simplifying and upgrading.

Of course, if you prefer to have a Game Cube and use a flip phone, then by all means, you do you! That’s definitely simpler than most technological toys out there! Just know that having an excess of technology that does the exact same thing is highly unnecessary. Plus, imagine all the money you can get from your vintage Pong game.

In short, technology not only effects the physical, but the emotional and mental well-being of us as well. Between the constant comparisons, the upgrades, the speed, the gigabyte megahertz, and everything else, our thoughts and lives are cluttered with electronic junk. Go back to your roots and clear out the static and the noise. You would be surprised how much you appreciate your electronics and simple phone calls and texts when you aren’t constantly bombarded with the impersonality of electronic life.