Returning to the Pre-Digital Era

The intense pain was piercing my head, sharp and agonizing. I held the right side of my head and instinctively reached for my iPhone, trying to find the cause. After all, Google has always told me what’s wrong with me. Once the screen started glowing, the pain came back – more acute than ever.

“What is wrong with me?” I asked myself. I started visiting several physiotherapists around Jakarta, because in two days, the migraine started affecting my neck and shoulders. Several years ago, I pulled a muscle on my knee while exercising and a physiotherapist helped to nurse it back to health. “Maybe I pulled a muscle,” I thought.

At the three clinics I visited, the therapists massaged my shoulders, neck and head. They also placed heat lamps over my areas of pain. However, nothing helped. A series of painkillers only solved the problem temporarily – the pain came back as soon as the medication wore off.

Desperate to find a cure, I sought the help of a neurologist. “It’s tension headache,” he said, and went on to prescribe more painkillers and muscle relaxers. “Try to relax, not to stress too much about work and take the medication. I will see you next week.” During the following week, I did what he told me to, and still did not see any improvements after the medications wore off.

I turned to essential oils next, as I did not want to be reliant on painkillers. The essential oils helped me to relax and get a good night’s sleep. However, I still woke up with a pounding migraine each day.

I decided to go to Singapore to visit a renowned neurologist at Gleneagles hospital. After examining me, he said, “I can prescribe you some medications, and there are some injections for severe cases of chronic migraines. But it is more important for you to manage your lifestyle better.”

I was taken aback. “My lifestyle?” I asked myself. This was when I realized that I had been doing too much work on my smartphone over the past few weeks. I was editing essays, researching and answering e-mails all on my smartphone instead of my laptop. I also spent hours of my free time shopping, scrolling on Instagram and reading news on the device. I realized that I had to cut back if I wanted to get better.

I learned that the blue light glare on our smartphones can cause eye and neck strains. Migraines are also a common occurrence. The first thing I did was switch to the dark mode. I preferred the light mode because it made everything brighter. But the dark mode actually filters harmful rays from entering our optical nerves – which are connected to our brains.

Light and dark settings on the iPhone

The lifestyle change was drastic. First, I had to stop depending on my smartphone and turned to my laptop for texting and most of my work. Second, I cut down on Instagram and browsing on my iPhone. Third, following my neurologist’s advice, I began to stop working at every waking hour and set aside a certain time of the day to literally “switch off” instead of working constantly.

The relief did not begin right away, but I began noticing differences in my life. I started observing things and people around me more. Instead of looking down at my phone, I began appreciating the sounds of birds in the early morning and the expressions of mothers as they looked at their children. My relationship with my family also changed – for the better. I listened to my husband and younger daughter more, spending more time personally with them, rather than being physically in the same room but having my attention on my phone. My older daughter, who is away at university in the United States, had chided me numerous times regarding my compulsive obsession with the phone - saying that she had to repeat something she was saying several times until I actually comprehended what she was trying to tell me.

I also returned to the printed world. An avid reader, I savored books that my older daughter brought back, the most recent being Vanessa Chan’s “The Storm We Made,” an utterly harrowing and horrific historical fiction about the Japanese occupation of British Malaya. My daughter, who is currently attending Cornell University, attended Chan’s book talk there and told me about it. I am glad that she managed to bring the book back as it restored my reading habits.

Vanessa Chan's superb novel

While reading the book, I was reminded about the power of the written word and the thrill of flipping each physical page. The tactile experience of reading a book connected me to the fictional world in a way that is more visceral than reading texts on Kindle or a laptop screen. As a fellow author and editor, I also appreciated the meticulous word choices that the author made and her ability to evoke deep emotions and fear in me.

As I continue to get better, I find that I am enjoying my return to the pre-digital era. Instead of being drawn into my smartphone for most of my waking hours, I am now relishing life as it should be – being with my beloved family and friends and giving them the full attention that they deserve.

Aimee Dawis, Ph.D. is the author of The Chinese of Indonesia and Their Search for Identity and Breaking Barriers: Portraits of Inspiring Chinese-Indonesian Women. She writes and researches on socio-cultural and ethnic identity issues.