Digital Detox

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, 21^st 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.