From Friday evening through Saturday night this week, I participated in a "digital fast," not using any communication or entertainment technology.
I began as I pulled into Washington DC, where I had driven from NC to see my daughter. I had chosen my arrival in DC as the beginning of my fast because I knew I couldn't start until I called Julia to get her to come out and help me find a place to park in her neighborhood -- and called my wife to tell her I made it in safely. The media I had with me were old school and worked just fine to get me there and entertain me when I was there -- an old fashioned map, the book I was reading, and my journal. We went out to eat, and it was a pleasure to walk through the streets of DC and not have to worry about messing with my phone. Of course, Julia and her boyfriend Kirby had figured out where we were going, so all I had to do was follow. I was with the people I wanted most to be with at that moment, happy with life and not needing to talk to anyone else.The next morning, I would be continuing on my trip to Charlottesville, VA to visit my parents, brother and sister, and I had told them I would be there by noon. In the middle of the night in DC, I woke up and realized that without my phone on, I had no way to set an alarm. As it turned out, I overslept, and I knew, as soon as I looked at the clock in the morning, that there was no way I would make it by noon. So, as I left Washington in a rush, debating whether to call my brother and sister to tell them I'd be late.
In the end, I decided to stick with my "fast," but the whole time I was driving, I thought of them checking their watches, wondering where I was.
The other thing I was dealing with on the drive was the silence, as I didn't listen to the radio or CD player as I drove. This was difficult for me, since I am habituated to listening to the radio or a CD or my iPod to keep me awake and interested as I drive. To make matters worse, I was in the middle of an excellent book on CD -- Frank Herbert's Dune -- and I was dying to know what happened next.
Luckily, that morning I was also in the middle of working out the details of a logic problem a student had told me about, so I spent the entire 3 hour trip playing around with 1's and 0's in my mind. It was amazing how fast the time flew just thinking. (When I got to Charlottesville, I shared this problem with my brother and nephew, detailing on a piece of paper what I'd worked out [above].)
In Charlottesville, it turned out no one was worried about my being late. On the contrary, my mom seemed surprised to see me, as if, without my constant checking in by phone as I drove, she had forgotten when I would arrive (or maybe even that I was coming at all).
I spent the rest of the day hanging out with my dad,
talking to my mom, and watching my brother play soccer.At one point I almost inadvertently ruined my no-technology streak as my brother-in-law Jim, sister Andrea and I sat around.
Jim and Andrea were texting their kids about this and that from their Blackberries, and I was just enjoying being with my family -- when it occurred to me to find out about the ASU football game. Without thinking, I asked to borrow Jim's phone to check the score -- and I suddenly realized what I was doing. Like a fasting man spitting out a piece of food he has accidentally put in his mouth, I tossed the phone back to Jim, saved from a near miss. Technology is so much like the air we breathe that we gulp it down without thinking. It's useful to say, once in a while, "I am breathing, I am breathing..."
(I waited until after my fast was over to use my mom's computer to find out about our crushing victory on the gridiron.)
The rest of my digital fast experience passed without incident -- a beautiful, warm, autumn day with my family -- uninterrupted, flowing like water from moment to moment. It is strange how just deciding to do this project -- and really following through -- helped me focus my attention. I found myself looking at simple things, sun and shadow in the windowsill for example, and seeing them somehow more clearly because I had made the decision to set aside the day for a different relationship to my attention. I was tuned to a new frequency.
At one point, I caught a reflection of my nephew on the blank TV screen, and it made me think about his life in screens -- and, by extension, my own life in screens. For instance, how much time do I spend paying attention to the real weather -- clouds, temperature, wind speed and direction -- as opposed to checking out Ray's Weather on Booneweather.com?
During dinner at a restaurant the day after my "digital fast," I noticed that it's not only screens that can take us away from one another. Check out the book my nephew brought with him to the table at the restaurant!
And I must admit I also noticed with renewed attention the surprising ways that technology can also bring us together. At dinner, there was a football game on the TV, and we all fell into watching the exciting climax of the game as the teams went into overtime, in this case using technology to connect us in the shared story of a come-from-behind victory (or dashed hopes if you were rooting for the Redskins).
Before I left Charlottesville, I went with my brother Matt and his son to an apple orchard to pick some apples to bring home and share with their horses -- and for me to bring home to Margot. Still mulling over the thoughts of the day before, I took some photos of the apple trees against the blue of the sky. I thought about color and human vision and why the sky is blue and about photosynthesis and about family -- beautiful things that transcend human tools. I'm left with the question: how can we best use our attention in the service of human curiosity, this sun-dappled world, and the people we love? There I was, shooting with a digital camera, thinking these thoughts. And here I am blogging about it.
