Carla DiBello On Why Disconnecting From Digital Is Becoming A Necessity
The entrepreneur and celebrity style insider shares why taking a step back from life online is now becoming a mechanism of survival
Here’s a dose of nostalgia – I remember when Survivor, one of the first reality shows ever, hit mainstream programming. It was as though overnight, an entire nation had been gripped by a group of people intentionally stranded on an island struggling to obtain essential provisions needed for survival, all while manoeuvering a series of invented social challenges made for the entertainment of the viewers. Alongside Big Brother, Survivor was one of the first reality shows to ever hit the airwaves, with its first season starting in the year 2000 and its finale reaching an average of 52 million viewers.
Twenty-two years later and I’d argue that we are all contestants on a spinoff of Survivor. Except this time, we have an audience of billions at each of our fingertips – and there’s zero waiting time in between episodes. With Instagram touting a usership of 1.44 billion and TikTok 1 billion, we are all characters on our own shows, making our way through a series of fabricated social challenges, whether they be choreographed dances, food pics, photo dumps, or videos on trending topics or songs. The only difference is that this time around, when I call us all survivors, it’s not a metaphor or syntax. I’m referencing the literal definition of the word. In the industrialised world, we’ve never had more ‘freedom’ of choice. More options, more convenience, more access. And yet, we continually become sicker, more anxious, angrier, more depressed, and more distrustful. We are, on paper, thriving. But in practice, we are not thriving – in fact, we are drowning beyond belief.
Results from a recent Gallup World Poll revealed that people living in the world’s wealthiest countries tend to feel a greater lack of purpose. And when we feel a lack of purpose, major side effects occur, such as crumbling mental health and confidence, and an increase in depression. It’s almost as though the more available the world becomes to us, the worse we feel because of it.
“Finding our own singular purpose outside of the larger social voice is the key to survival in the modern age”
I think there are multiple reasons for this. But one of them is definitely societal pressure from systems and people that, in reality, have very little to do with who we truly are. I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve gone to post or found myself scrolling online or even just found myself spiralling from reading news headline after headline. Large-scale trends and social chatter have nothing to do with who we are at our core and leave little room for genuine individualism. They don’t speak to us as individuals with our own unique ideas and experiences. And their constant onslaught make it difficult to regulate ourselves on a neurological level.
While in the past, threats to survivorship took on manifestations of more physical threats, today, most of the battles we face are invisible. Safety now means protecting our intellectual property and mental health. It means maybe not sharing everything about ourselves and garnering unwanted feedback. It requires protecting our own perspective of ourselves and our connection with the world via the never-ending task of filtering to get to our own sense of truth. And it requires the continual untangling of our lives on the internet from who we actually are. While finding safety in the herd was an initial way to survive in more primitive times, finding our own singular purpose outside of the larger social voice is the key to survival in this modern age. How do we maintain a smaller world that is our own in order to not be washed away with the masses – and be subject to others moods and emotions? What protective tactics can we put in place to anchor ourselves to who we truly are in an increasing sea of voices?
In a twist of irony, one thing I think the show Survivor got right, was stripping away all external distractions by isolating the contestants from the world. By removing an excess of options they had a far more focused purpose. They had a goal and they had clarity. And even though they were ‘isolated,’ they still had a community within arms’ reach. How, in our own modern-day rendition, can we reclaim our personal sense of purpose and fulfillment? When I put my phone down and look around, my inner voice is amplified and I also begin to notice and connect better with the community directly around me. This sounds redundant, I know. But what would actually happen to our private worlds if we took back that power even for just a short while? How much autonomy could we regain? What would the world look like, sound like, feel like without anyone else around save for those who were actually, physically in front of us? And how surprised would we be to discover, when switching our phones back on a day later, that not much has really changed since we last plugged in? And even more so, that our absence was hardly missed in comparison to the connections we reinforced in person? Because to me, those are the lifelines we need most when drowning in a world that is too full of options.
Photography: Efraim Evidor
Styling: Seher Khan. Carla wears: Dress, Dhs2,400, Riyeka Studios. Shoes, Carla’s own. Hair and Make-up: La Loge. With thanks to the Westin Dubai Mina Seyahi Beach Resort & Marina
By Carla DiBello for Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s October 2022 issue.