It seems ever since the start of 2020, life in a digital sense has easily taken over. Where social media was once a simple scroll in your down time or a way to stay in touch with your high school pals, has now become a livelihood, a lifestyle and an almost all-daily pastime. But how does something that feels so good, seem so bad? Who better to answer this question than someone who’s very career is spent seeing the world though a digital screen? We’ve tapped innovative fashion photographer, Rex Yu, to tell us what we need to know about unplugging and balancing real life in this digital world.

“On the topic of digital life vs. real life, I feel in both realms, require hyper self reflection and analytical awareness. Balance is crucial in how you use these digital platforms. These amazing tools have been designed to get you addicted, so setting screen time limits, unplugging, and detaching yourself from your mobile phone and other devices are absolutely necessary if you want to detox from overstimulation and all the small dopamine hits you get from what we ingest visually, sonically, and if you want to get deeper, spiritually.”

Scroll with intention. 

“What you digest digitally will affect how you live physically, that goes without question. As with all things, how you look at something is how you typically look at most things, so be mindful on what subjects you are looking at and really ask yourself — are you ingesting things that are bettering your self-growth? Are the items you interact with digitally nursing your soul or are you mindlessly scrolling through things as if you were digesting fast food? I’ve learned that having a good grasp of this understanding is key to creating authentic content in the digital world and how you touch those around you in the physical world.”

To share or not to share.

“What I share digitally is usually a very curated dialogue with a viewer and I tend to only share (sometimes overshare) art / inspiration on my professional account and rarely anything else. I love how interacting with the digital spaces and others in this playground can inspire my art. It can make me ‘feel’ more human than ever. Whether it creates a sense of inspiration, shock, or even jealousy that I didn’t think of that idea first. I love curating or sharing things that shape my view and hopefully my viewers that see my work will reshape or take a life of its own when I see others using my work as mood boards for theirs. That in itself is inspiring and motivating.”

Remember, there is a time and a place folks!

“Using digital content to connect in a more physical way is what I think we should all aim to accomplish. There’s a time and place to share and I’m not here to judge anyone else on how they should go about doing that. I can only do what I feel is authentic to me, which is keep my private life private — because it’s sacred and a luxury — and share only the art that I make or things that inspire me, because that is the true self that I continue to aspire to present to the world. It is actually the most accurate and intimate aspect of artistry in my opinion. My personal life is no where near as intimate as the art I’m sharing with the world because that is something that can be critiqued and analyzed.  As I get older and more self reflective, I tend to become less attached to social media and what I need to share about my daily life, we all know it’s just the highlight reel anyway. I tend to keep all my highlight reels personal and only share mostly for myself or to others when I meet them in real life.”

You just had to be there. 

“Doing mindfulness exercises [to help unplug from social media], such as meditation, self reflection, yoga, and other exercises have really helped me become more self aware of what I really want in my life. I’m way more mindful of being fully present these days, which makes me a more aware person enjoying the human experience, rather than someone recording a human experience. We should be human ‘beings’ in the moment. I also realized that most things I do now are so entertaining to me that I forget about the phone entirely or even having to document it. ‘You just had to be there’ type of vibe you know? Not a judgement, rather an observation, those that overshare are usually looking for external validation or are actually quite bored haha. So just do things that aren’t boring that ‘actually’ stimulate you where you are so engaged, you don’t care to share it with anyone else, it’s strictly a personal experience. Everything you do should have that humanistic touch anyway!”

Wallet - check! Passport - check! Polaroid Camera - CHECK!

“When I travel, I don’t really record or take photos. I only carry a polaroid camera, and for good reason, because I’m immersing myself. And I only shoot polaroids when the photo is worthy of a capture and at that point it’s because I’m trying to create something aesthetically pleasing and tangible. When I shoot fashion editorials is usually the only time I’m hyper intentional with ‘capturing’ something, because what I’m actually doing is helping creatively guide art to fruition. I think when I’m methodically selective and with full intention on capturing something, it’s actually meaningful, not a bunch of fluff I’ll never look at again. I’m not trying to waste all the memory on my iCloud or phone LOL.”