Author and education researcher Julianne Wurm writes about what she learned from giving up her phone during a 6-week trip in Asia. She had her laptop and iPad (both? really?), checked in a couple times a day, but had long stretches (up to a week) of being intentionally and happily offline.
My biggest lesson? People will wait. I used to check my email right when I came out of a yoga class or the second I stepped out of the subway—trying to walk down 7th Avenue and answer messages right away….
[Second,] there are few things in life that are truly urgent. We get caught up in the belief that everything needs to happen asap—the immediacy of our connected world. The reality is, if there is no blood, it can likely wait.
Her story is very consistent with what I found listening to digital sabbatarians for my book (shown with a cat taking a digital sabbath):
People who take successful digital sabbaths don’t eliminate absolutely everything with a screen, but give some thought to what they need to get away from (no one unplugs the microwave, even though it has a screen).
They all report how amazing it is that they don’t miss critical messages, that their lives don’t proceed with the urgency that Vodafone or Samsung or their bosses encourage them to think it does.
They all talk about discovering a richer sense of time, and a repaired sense of attention and presence.
And most of them find it unnecessary to reconnect the firehose when they return: that they can stay in touch and on top of everything without being always-on.
