The Power of Off Quotes

“Technology allows us to instantly find the facts that support what we already believe. While in the past we may have subscribed to particular newspapers or magazines that leaned in the direction of our opinions, still, we could not avoid being exposed to a variety of different ideas. The opportunities to come across information we don’t agree with are now diminished. We can easily expose ourselves only to the information that supports our views, stated as facts right there on the Internet. We show up at the table armed with our already decided upon personal truths, and when the information coming at us doesn’t fit what we already know, we stop listening and discard it.”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“Technology facilitates the natural human drive to flee from the moment, avoid what’s challenging, and seek pleasure at all costs, none of which create happiness, peace, or well-being in the end.”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“Technology use is a family problem, not just a child or a parent problem. Almost 70 percent of children think their parents spend too much time on their devices, and a survey by Opinion Matters also revealed that more than one-third of the children they questioned are worried that their parents are incapable of shutting off their devices.2 Children are losing their parents to technology, just as parents are losing their children to it. We’re all disappearing down the same rabbit hole.”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“When we send our children to their rooms to play on their own, we are giving them the opportunity to discover and invent something, to engage themselves. Playing alone — without a device — teaches children that they can rely on their own creativity and imagination. Furthermore, it allows them to experience what it feels like to imagine something into being. Such play makes children self-reliant and teaches them to take ownership of and responsibility for their own attention.”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“In truth, the “I” cannot be found. “I” is an idea that has an array of adjectives, memories, and stories attached to it, but “I” as an entity unto itself doesn’t exist.”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“Trust that life, as its own force, doesn’t need you to force it forward.”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“How utterly radical it is to live without intention, and how utterly freeing it is.”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“Social media is about immediacy. Even the word media is built into immediacy. In social media, before you can finish a thought there is a new one to replace it: I am drinking a latte. I like this movie. I hate this steak. I disagree with this decision . . . ad infinitum. Immediacy itself is not the problem. Rather, indulging in posting every thought that passes through our consciousness, without considering whether it offers anything of meaning to the world, discourages critical and mature thinking.”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“In today’s world, our digitally marinated minds must decide what our hearts and spirits need in order to be well — and thus what nourishment we will draw from life. A digitally marinated mind, however, is not the right candidate for this task because the amped-up, teched-out mind is not only out of touch with the heart and spirit, it also has a radically different agenda and set of needs. When our technology-fueled mind is consulted as if it were a wise sage, it convinces us that the following falsehoods are true: •​The more virtual friends and followers we acquire, the more connected and loved we will feel. •​The more “likes” we get for our opinions and ideas, the more liked we will feel, and the more we will like ourselves. •​The more we communicate, the less alone we will feel. •​The more entertainment we consume, the less bored and empty we will feel. •​The more information we amass, the more interesting life — and we — will become. •​The easier we make our lives, the better they will be. •​If other people know about our lives, our lives will feel more real to us. •​If the world knows who we are, we will know who we are. •​”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“When we decide for ourselves how we want to conduct our lives on the basis of what is actually important to us, we discover that we can be in our lives instead of just barely keeping up with the life that technology offers.”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“The smartphone is the Trojan horse through which work sneaks into the home.”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“it’s reported that a child born in 2013 will have spent a year of her life in front of a screen by the age of seven.11”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“She connected with the Internet at the expense of her other interests, which are slowly disappearing. This is becoming a common way to spend a day, the societal norm, not the exception.”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“It is alarming to see us choosing to use technology in ways that indulge a proclivity for unconsciousness. But what is even more alarming is that we have shifted our relationship with technology so that it is no longer just a tool that we control, something we set aside when it doesn’t help. We have crossed a threshold and are now surrendering our authority and experience to technology as if it were the master and we its slaves. Because technology can do something, we think it should — must do it, in fact — without considering whether we actually want it to or whether it even makes sense.”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“Our virtual world has turned into a town dump, a hoarder’s paradise, with us humans in charge of picking through the rubbish.”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“We need time to be awake but not ready and available — to our boss, clients, partner, friends, and even our children. Even the busiest, most responsible, indispensable, or in-demand person can create small spaces to step off the hamster wheel of others’ needs.”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

“We are succumbing to our more primitive tendencies toward unconsciousness, going under a kind of technological anesthesia, which renders us unaware of where we actually are physically and with whom we are sharing company. Technology is dazzling us into a form of entertaining sleep, and too many of us are not yet making conscious choices about whether we agree with what is happening and in fact want to disappear from our lives. Technology”
― Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World