Because sometimes the only cure for online nonsense is dinosaurs and a cup of coffee.
How do I know it’s time to unplug?
Usually it’s when I’m knee-deep in a Reddit thread where someone claims coeliac disease didn’t exist before the 90s, and is clearly caused by “chemicals in the wheat” or, my favourite one so far, “too much negativity in the gut.”
I’ll have three tabs open: one with actual peer-reviewed research, one with a reply I’m furiously drafting, and one with a meme I’ve now stared at for five minutes without blinking. At that point, it’s not a choice. It’s survival.
If I don’t shut the laptop, I’ll be submitting a formal complaint to the internet titled “Please Stop Talking, You’re Making It Worse.”
So what do I do instead?
I close everything, mutter something overly dramatic like “I can’t live like this,” and go find my wife. Helen takes one look at me and says something grounding like, “Have you eaten?”
Then Ollie appears and were now playing with his toy dinosaurs in the lounge, or that I have to help chase shadows with a plastic lightsaber. And just like that, I’m back in the real world.
No algorithm has ever made me laugh like Ollie. No wellness influencer has ever brought me back to myself like Helen handing me a cup of coffee and raising an eyebrow that says, “You’ve gone too far again, haven’t you?”
And it works. It always works.
The real unplug
Unplugging isn’t about disappearing or pretending the chaos doesn’t exist. It’s about stepping back far enough to see what actually matters. It’s about letting go of the noise so you can hear the good stuff — laughter, cuddles, actual conversations.
I’ll still go back online. I’ll still write, share, vent, connect. But when the digital world gets too loud, I know now where to go to remember who I am.
Hint: it’s not in the comments section.
Have you had to unplug lately? What pulled you back to the real world? Drop a comment or share your story below ⬇️
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