I published a short piece on Medium about digital Sabbaths. I was inspired to write it by Jessica Valenti's entirely unobjectionable piece in The Guardian about how deleting the social media apps from her smartphone gave her a little distance between herself and "being told daily that you're a slut, or a bitch, or that you should be raped all because you had the temerity to have an opinion and a vagina at the same time."
I've been shocked at how much of a difference it's already made. I'm no longer "just checking" to see what people are talking about, only to come across some random person [being offensive]…. I've also become less likely to get drawn in to a conversation when I should be eating dinner with my family, or tweeting when I should be relaxing before bed…. My concentration is also on the rise.
The number of negative comments the piece has "inspired" are kind of amazing. And more generally, there's still something about digital detoxes or Sabbaths that inspires a special kind of vitriol.
The Medium piece is based on one of the appendices of my book, with a little updating. I expected the advice "don't talk about the Sabbath" would be out of date by now, but oddly it's even more relevant than ever.