I'm going on a cold turkey techcation
I’m three weeks out from hip replacement surgery. The physical challenges feel less significant than they once did—I’m graduating from walker to cane, I’ve circumnavigated the block a couple of times (over a couple of days), and I’m driving again. Yesterday, I drove myself to my first physical therapy session where I demonstrated that I could sit in a chair and stand up again unaided and practiced walking while assuring my therapist that I used to be a runner.
And just for good measure, I stopped at Costco on the way home, picked up a new computer I ordered and an ice cream from the snack bar, and walkered back to my car without dropping anything. Booyah!
Technology has been everything for me lately. Confined to my house and largely restricted to my bed and its post-surgery apparatus (ice wrap machine for my swollen hip, electronic pressure cuffs to help with circulation), I find myself equally attached to my computer and phone.
You may be thinking, but with all that leisure time, you could do so much else—read, write, draw. Start that collections journal you’ve been planning to do since March. Outline your new website. Catch up on the various trainings you signed up for but haven’t completed in the last few weeks/months/years.
Yes, I could. But I didn’t. What did I do?
I scrolled (and scrolled and scrolled).
While I did write a couple of blogs, and I did read a couple of books, I spent a daily average of 8 hours and 12 minutes on my phone perusing three categories—shopping, social, and food. I didn’t buy much, barely talked with anyone, and didn’t cook anything, but I spent almost my entire waking time for the last week engaged at least in some part with my phone.
And I am not even counting my computer and ipad time.
Tomorrow, we leave on our annual family vacation to a rented lake house in Wisconsin or Michigan—I’m never quite sure which. It’s a shorter than usual trip this year—just 4 days—I won’t need an alarm to wake up, everyone who might need me to pick them up or help them out will be with me, and I don’t need anything from Amazon.
So I’m leaving my phone behind.
Google “digital detox”, “phone diet”, or “technology break” and you will get millions of hits (but if you search for techcation, you won’t get anyone using the word the way I am). I have a few different approaches to weaning myself from technology bookmarked but really the only approach to anything that has ever worked for me is cold turkey.
I quit smoking cold turkey and fasting is easier for me than a small meal. Give me a little bit and I want it all; give me nothing and I’ll find something else.
My techcation rules
This is how my techcation will work:
When we get to our destination, I turn off my phone and leave it in the car until we get back in the car to drive home.
That’s it. I get to have it on the trip up for navigational and Starbucks purposes, but once we are caffeinated and arrived, the phone goes away.
Am I nervous about it? Yes, do anticipate some withdrawal shakes and perhaps an attempt to sneak a bit of screen time. Part of me wants to allow time-restricted, scheduled check-ins—make sure the bank still has both of my dollars, that Oprah or Barack or Harry hasn’t called for a meet up, or that my house hasn’t burned down, blown up, or been washed away—but do I really need to?
Everyone else will have their phones. Other than missing a possible luncheon in LA, I will be kept up-to-date.
I do have a bit of techcation PTSD. Back in 2016, I attempted a 15-minute tech break. I intentionally left my phone on my desk and walked to a friend’s office for a visit. When I got back to my desk, my phone had blown up with texts and voicemails and my desk phone light was blinking with messages. My 10-year-old daughter had broken her arm at summer camp, and I needed to get her and take her to the hospital.
Provided I can let go of my FOMO and need for control (since that is what this is really about), I’m pretty sure I can leave my phone behind and have a techcation to go with my vacation.
I’m packing in two books, a few notebooks, a bunch of pens and markers, and my walker. One thing I have learned from my hip surgery is that if I am going to bother to move, it has to be worth my effort. Going on techcation is really going somewhere. Really.
