Doing Nothing: The Importance Of Being In The Way

The world is more connected than it has ever been before, we can see that through the ubiquitous use of the internet, with a large portion of that being social media usage. According to Pew Research Center, nearly sixty-two percent of the United States population uses at least one social media website (Duggan, 2015). That was a year ago. With this many connections, there are a multitude of positives. Easier communication, the sharing of knowledge, even just for the sake of entertainment. However, this essay is going to talk about a very large negative that this level of connection has caused. In our daily lives, with seeing so many people doing things on social media, connection with their happiest, most entertaining moments, we feel obligated to do something, whatever it may be. Because of this obligation, we have forgotten the importance of doing nothing. …show more content…
In his piece, Being in the Way, Watts discusses how the modern human is caught up in their own mind, thinking about unnecessary things (1982, p. 65). In our daily live, we use social media not only to connect with other people, but to distract ourselves from the current task at hand. This level of distraction in itself is just something to do, but it also shows us what other people are doing. Looking at other’s activities, we compare them to our task at hand, consciously or not, and decide which is more “fun” or “interesting”. Our mind then becomes riddled not only with what we’re doing, but then with what other’s are doing. Add in the thoughts on how we compare our lives, and just as Watts has said, our mind is now filled with useless information. Even though I am a big fan and advocate of technology, it is important to understand how it strains our mind through these little