The digital space to many of us has become a haven, one where we try to entertain ourselves, relax from the stressful activities that we have been occupied with, a place where we tend to release those tensions in us and most importantly, a place where we stop worrying about those challenges bothering our hearts. To be frank, the digital space has been one of my relievers when it comes to having a clear thought and focusing on the present.
Unwinding on the digital space is something I do every day because when I pick up my phone, I move to different places and before I say jack, time has gone but in the end, I am always happy doing what I want to do with a stable internet at some point and a fully charged phone to keep me busy and entertaining.
I have lots of guilty pleasures in the digital world and I don't think anyone here doesn't have some, too. It used to be funny when I have decided to do something but found myself doing something else on my phone and when I realised that, I laughed at myself and began to find ways to return to what I had intended to do in the first place.
One of those pleasures is scrolling through Pinterest and soaking myself in the imagination of having those things on me. One thing I focus on when I open the app is fashion. The latest and trending style to make for an outfit even though I don't have the material yet. I would scroll up and down, left and right checking out various designs, downloading the ones that captivate me and working on making the same styles. Most of my outfits and hairstyles were ideas from Pinterest and I am always excited doing that just to find something new in my closet.
The next guilty pleasure is scrolling through YouTube short videos. This happens every day and I am always tempted when I get a notification from YouTube, while doing something else, I remind myself not to spend much time checking what the notification brought to me, I watch that, and a new one will pop up, then watch, then would say, okay this last one but it doesn't end until I get distracted by an external force. Once I open this app, I just hope something calls me back to my original state of what I wanted to do. But it's all fun!
The next guilty pleasure is scrolling through online courses. I have come to enjoy browsing through Alison and Coursera apps. I would find myself spending some time checking out some courses I can take to help and expand my knowledge. You see, it's all about digital technology where all you need is online. Improving oneself with new skills doesn't require you to travel anywhere as this can be done online in the comfort of your zone.
I have been taking the courses I have saved while scrolling and it has been fun doing that either on my phone or laptop. Not a day would pass by without checking courses on any of the apps and saving them to learn accordingly. There is no way you can't visit these apps when you are on your phone at the time. I may be interacting with my friends and siblings or doing another thing else, then something will shift my focus to check a new course to learn and be evaluated at the end of the day.
Finally, I have the guilty pleasure of exploring different items online. One website I do go to is jumia. I can go on shopping sprees admiring the ones I love, and checking out their prices even when I wouldn't take a step to click the order button because I am always afraid of ordering things like that, especially witnessing the "What I ordered vs what I got". So, it's all fun with the online shopping spree just to feed my eyes with good stuff that my mind would note down in case I need to get them in the future.
These are some guilty pleasures that mostly take my time away from my work and wouldn't be able to complete them at the end of the day but that doesn't make me not to decide one day to make sure I complete whatever I need to do before these things divert my attention. At least it's all good when you can compensate yourself with these pleasures when you have done all you need to do for the day so that you don't end up feeling unhappy with being unproductive or not achieving your targets for the day.
First Image || others are screenshots from my phone
