Page 18 - IAV Digital Magazine #582

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
By David Leonhardt
This week, Americans will endure flight delays, traffic jams and other logistical miseries to spend time with family and friends. And when the holiday weekend is ending, many will lament that they don’t get to spend enough time with those rel- atives and friends.
But during the weekend itself, these same lamenters will spend a lot of time ignoring the people around them and distract- edly staring into their phones. They will get a notification and disappear down a digital rabbit hole of Facebook posts, text messages and fantasy- football updates. They will monitor the comments on the photos they just post- ed, instead of engaging with the human beings in those photos.
Many of us have a compli- cated relationship with our phones. We enjoy them in the moment. Yet when we reflect on all the time we spend looking at a tiny screen, we feel lousy about it. We pine for a less addic- tive relationship with the online world.
So let me make a sugges- tion for this Thanksgiving weekend: Turn off your phone, and keep it off for a full 24 hours. I predict you’ll be surprised by how much you’ll like it.
About a month ago, my wife and I decided that our family would spend a Saturday without the inter- net, a practice known as a Tech Shabbat (a reference to the Jewish day of rest). I wasn’t sure whether I’d like it, I’ll admit, and our kids were even less sure.
But it was wonderful. We
hung out with friends, with- out distraction. We never had to ask, guiltily, “Sorry, what’d you say?” because we had been only semi-lis- tening. In between sched- uled activities, we took a walk and played a board game, Settlers of Catan. I spent time thinking about long-term projects instead of replying to unimportant emails. It felt productive, rejuvenating and, yes, fun.
Tiffany Shlain, a filmmaker who popularized the idea of a Tech Shabbat, says that on her day without screens, she laughs more, sleeps better and feels healthier. As she writes
in her recent book, “24/6”: “Having one day off each week shocks you anew into the realization of how bizarre it is that everyone is head-down, looking at screens all the time. That should never feel normal.”
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine