While I was on vacation this past
week, I decided to go on a fast from social media. This is a scaled down
version of something I did around Easter back in 2012. Back then; I stayed off
of social media for the term of Lent. My goals were more around experimenting
with self-discipline. This time around, I just needed a break from all of the
different sources of input. My day job is very e-mail dependent and it seems
like I can’t look at my phone without seeing a notification that someone posted
something that Facebook wants me to look at right away or that there are 10 new
emails that have come in since the last time that I looked.
The idea of a digital detox is not
something new or I can take credit for coming up with. I was somewhat relieved
that I was not the only one who felt overloaded and needed to unplug from the
Internet. I have read a number of posts from people who talked about their
experiences with getting away from it all, 21st century style.
I started with the day before my
family and I were scheduled to head off to one of our favorite places to camp.
It is a place that my wife and I have been to nearly every summer since we got
married. The start to my media fast was not as intentional as it would seem.
With all of the stuff we had to do to get ready to go, I accidentally
left my
phone in my car for a while after running errands. I am not sure this is
something that only I experience, but, sometimes, I get these muscle spasms in
my legs that feel like my phone is ringing on vibrate mode. I didn’t realize
that my phone was not on me until I had one of those muscle spasms.
One of the great things about this
camping spot that we go to is it is truly out in the middle of nowhere. Cell
phones do not work and I think that any Internet access that the local business
may have has to be by satellite. That was the easy part of the fast. Nothing
like being cut off that makes it easy to deal with internal temptations. The
real challenges came when we got home.
We came home after camping for
three days. The plan was to leave the following day for another campground
after we took care of some appointments. The plans were changed around
completely after my wife got second-degree sunburn the day before we came home.
She was in no condition to try to camp anywhere else after that. After we
decided to cancel the second trip, we still decided to make the rest of the
week a staycation. This is where the real temptations started to kick in.
It
was really challenging not to stop and look at Twitter while I was balancing or
bank account or peak at Facebook with the movie that the family was watching
was paused for a bathroom break. I was able to stay away from it, but it really
showed me something about how these little programs and devices can be real
distractions from living out live if we let them.
All
told, this is something that I recommend that everyone try to do, even if it is
just for a long weekend. The day that my fast ended, I got on to Twitter to see
at least a dozen comments on my feed about people being upset that a different
person has been chosen to play Batman. I think I ended my fast too soon.
