Escaping the internet increases happiness

Taking social media and email off my smartphone has made me happier, writes Nikesh Shukla.

Ifeel happy today,’’ my daughter announces as we walk to her nursery. ‘‘That’s lovely to hear,’’ I tell her. ‘‘What’s made you happy?’’ She thinks about it. ‘‘I don’t know,’’ she says, after a few minutes of reflection. ‘‘This morning, when I opened my eyes, I smiled and I was just happy.’’ ‘‘That’s so nice,’’ I say. ‘‘Hearing that makes me happy. You’ve made me happy.’’ ‘‘I know,’’ she says.

I haven’t been happy recently. It’s been largely a feeling of being overworked and moving from project to project without ever getting the opportunity to reflect and enjoy the satisfaction of completing it. Then there’s the correspondence about the project. If you write and put stuff into the public sphere, people have a space within which to give you feedback in the form of social media posts, comments and emails. But every now and then, a piece of ‘‘feedback’’ will undo you.

I received an email, after a comment of mine, where the person wrote: ‘‘I don’t want to be unwelcoming or unfriendly. . .’’ before laying out, in the politest way possible, their case for why eugenics is real and therefore racism can be justified because I don’t belong in this country and I should just go home. It’s the polite tone, the reasonableness with which the email is executed that completely undid me.

‘‘It’s just an idiot off the internet,’’ a friend says. ‘‘Best ignore it.’’ But it’s hard to ignore.

I remember receiving an angry email from someone about something I’d written on my way to a venue. An email came through and a loose thumb selected it. I read it. Then 10 minutes later, I was on stage doing a talk about my work, having just read something that laid out why that work was terrible.

The random idiots off the internet accumulate and take up residence in your head. It makes it hard to step away and get some perspective. So that polite eugenicist took up real estate in my head, gnawing away, and God I was unhappy.

I recently turned my smartphone into just a phone. I took all the email and social media off it. And that has, weirdly, made me happier. Having the power to pick and choose when you interact with people is empowering.

As we walk up the road, we play the game we play most mornings: the first person to spot the purple car wins. I let my daughter win. The baby, desperate to be let off the leash, dives out of my hands in an effort to walk alongside her sister. I put her on the ground. She holds each of our hands and we pull her along. We stop to pick flowers for two of my daughter’s favourite staff members at the nursery. We arrive and just before I ring the doorbell, I look at my eldest and say: ‘‘I’m happy too.’’

‘‘Good,’’ she replies. We go inside and someone asks me to check a date on my calendar. I go to get my phone out and realise

I’ve left it at home. ‘‘I’ll check later,’’ I tell her.

I leave for home and walk down the road, away from nursery, and I smile. I do feel happy today. — Guardian News and Media