“Our perfectly curated digital homes eat up the spaces that were supposed to be reserved for people and places around us.”

As the first generation to truly grow up online, we have something unique to the modern age: a home within the confines of the internet. For better or for worse, our ideas, values and even our culture have been shaped by our access to digital media. Within the ever-changing and everlasting online space, we have created a new home for ourselves. A space we reach for constantly since any emotion can trigger our response to engage with the little world we have created, either to share our joys or forget our worries. 

The recommended videos on our YouTube pages, the pictures we see on Instagram and the continuous stream of TikToks work like strange little decorations in the rooms we have created online. While it is easy to understand the internet as just another tool we use daily, the reality is that the internet shapes us. Just like spending around four hours daily somewhere would impact you, the internet does that too. 

Having a personal little retreat sounds amazing in theory; the possibilities seem endless, but maybe it has always been too good to be true. The issue comes from the fact that these homes were created by a powerful algorithm that made us develop a habit, and at some point we all just started staring at our little worlds without giving them a second thought. 

We spend so much time looking at these digital decorations through a screen that we can forget what truly matters. Our perfectly curated digital homes eat up the spaces that were supposed to be reserved for people and places around us. The people we are and where we are going are changing dramatically too. And there is nothing wrong with having such a connection to the internet and to your own world, but maybe, just maybe, it is time to set those time limits to give yourself back to your real home—the people and places that an algorithm did not curate. 

It may be time to delete some of those pesky apps that are robbing you of your time to regain some control over what has your attention and energy. Or it could be removing scrolling from your morning routine. The goal is not to fully remove the digital homes we have built for so long but to readjust the relationship we have with them, their pull on us, and create a more mindful consumption of media. We need to be able to choose what can come into our home, what deserves space on the walls and what does not, instead of just accepting it all. Most importantly, we can work on remembering the homes that really need and benefit from our attention.