Thoreau's words apply to our daily lives and interactions with digital media.
On weekends I rarely look at email. My computer is turned off. Maybe you've discovered this if you try to communicate electronically with me on weekends. My family and real life take front and center. Yes, I may miss important messages, but I also gain something much more vital: thinking, focus, fun, physical activity and LIFE.
I've learned I'm not the only one. Taking a break from the computer life even has a name: Internet Sabbath.
The simple fact is computers and gadgets distract us. They fragment our brain and make us constantly interruptable. We confuse what's urgent or immediate with what's important.
Taking a break is essential. It reminds us how full the world is (and used to be) before we spent so much of our time in a screen world. Taking a break models a balanced life for our children. It's slower, less cluttered and richer.
If you haven't read some of these thought-provoking articles (warning: might take some focus) take a look here. How college students are learning to meditate to counteract their digital, multi-tasking existence (Chronicle of Higher Education). How multi-tasking actually creates mental dead space, not increased activity as we shift from one task to another. Support for Unplugged Sundays and the addictive nature - not of the machine - but of human beings ourselves (The New Yorker).
Walden Pond on a summer day
As a parent, I need to interact with my children in the real world. Computer skills are quite easy to learn. Human skills are not.
As a writer, I need focus and solitude with my thoughts and writing to produce stories and ideas worth reading. Once the book is written, I can use social media tools to spread the word about it, but I can't write it in the first place with a cluttered, distracted mind.
Do you find yourself spending more time with internet 'friends' then lifelong friends you care about? Do you feel distracted? How would you create unplugged time during the week?
Heather - I'm an UNplugger, too. Typically I UNplug (cut the umbilical cord to technology) on Sundays because it gives me the "pause that refreshes" for the week ahead.
Wonderful, Laurie. Glad to know your an unplugger, too!
Heather. Those of us who were around long before there was an internet are especially aware of this happening, this hurry and disorientation of staring at the screen all the time, answering email after email. I applaud you for this sabbath. I am still checking all the time, but it is true that Sundays I often don't have the lid of my computer up all day. It isn't exactly a rule, but it's what I do most of the time. You're encouraging me to do better and maybe I wlll.
Thanks for offering your perspective, and reminding us all how we once lived (the majority of our lives!) without all this constant checking and screen adulation. It is good to examine what's good from both BCIE and ACIE (Before the Common Internet Era) and (After the Common Internet Era).
I don't take intentional Internet Sabbaths, but often on a weekend I won't get to my computer at all for various reasons: golf in season, family activities or travel at other times. I don't suffer withdrawal from my computer if I'm away for a day or two. I'll be going up to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for a 5-day trip and will rejoice at the silence and simplified living and no computer. Not even a cellphone (which I rarely use anyway).
I agree the internet is a brain fragmenter and worry that it may exacerbate symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease or dementia. The fact that we can expose our minds to exponentially greater amounts of information now than we could 20-30 years ago means we are more likely to forget more things than we used to, just because there's more to forget. (*Ugh* That's one of the more depressing sentences I've written in recent years. 🙂 )
Brain fragmenter - yes! And it seems we all have "forgetteries" rather than memories.