A Week Without Screens

As I mentioned in my last post, I left my job as the Engineering Lead at a small company a couple of weeks ago. For my entire tenure there, it was pretty hard to completely disconnect from technology. I had worked incredibly hard to get our infrastructure to a point of boring stability, but there is always a small chance that something you couldn’t plan for would go wrong and cause an outage. That meant checking in on Slack and Sentry a couple of times a day. Even if I was on vacation and not expected to, it was usually impossible to resist the urge.

In my personal life, like many people, I was experiencing all of the undesirable side-effects of having this addictive little rectangle in my pocket. The uncontrollable urge to check in on Hacker News, Reddit, or Mastodon multiple times a day because surely some post would answer the unanswerable and guide me to enlightenment. My phone was ever present, turning every daily activity into an exercise in multitasking. Getting through a book was difficult, because inevitably I would have a distracting thought that I absolutely had to look up on my phone right that minute.

It was for all these reasons I wanted to take this rare opportunity to try something of a technology fast.

I set up a few rules for myself:

1. My phone would be on lock down, only allowing phone calls and text messages. Absolutely no notifications. I would keep it in a separate room and only check for messages a couple of times a day.
2. No YouTube (my other addiction). TV was acceptable in the evenings, as long as it wasn’t short form content.
3. I could only use my laptop when absolutely necessary, which ended up including a couple of time-sensitive job applications and printing the NY Times crossword.

The week ended up being incredibly rewarding.

I read two books: The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet and The Real World of Technology

I watched two fascinating documentaries: Kim’s Video and A Still Small Voice

I rediscovered the joy of doing one thing at a time. For example, just experiencing having my breakfast and coffee in the morning without scrolling the news or watching YouTube.

I re-explored our record collection.

I did the NY Times crossword every day.

I took walks, drove, and grocery shopped without a podcast or music in the background.

I didn’t feel like I missed anything (people often told me about things going on in the world they thought were important).

I was bored for the first time in a while.

What was perhaps most surprising and relieving was that I felt my attention span restored within 24 hours of locking away my phone. I was able to get through chapters of my books undistracted, and my thinking felt much clearer and more focused. I really assumed I was much further gone than that, and it would take a significant effort and focus to restore my attention. That it was just a day’s worth of self-discipline away makes me quite disappointed in myself that I didn’t attempt this sooner.

My takeaway from the experiment is that this is something that I want to continue in some form. This week, I’m back to checking in on what’s happening on the internet a couple of times a day and I watched my favorite YouTube luthier repair a Gibson Melody Maker this morning. But right now my phone is in the other room, and after I finish this post I’m going to sit on the porch and finish up the (printed) crossword puzzle for today.

How I perceive my phone after this experience has also changed significantly after just one week. I’d say I hold it in disdain - almost like an evil presence in my house. This feeling might fade, but for the moment it actually feels relieving to keep it on my bedside table all day.