Scott Sporleder/Camp Grounded
Participants in a recent "summer camp for adults" sponsored by Digital
Detox happily gave up their personal electronics for four days of camp
games, quiet time and actual face-to-face interaction.
There’s
no need to call Drs. Drew, Oz or Phil, but if you’ve ever spent a
vacation continuously checking your email, updating your status or
Instagramming your meals, it may be time for an intervention.
The
good news is that at a time when many travel companies have essentially
become enablers — 4G! Free Wi-Fi! — a handful are encouraging guests to
turn off their phones, stow their laptops and tablets and voluntarily
embrace a technology-free “digital detox.”
“The fact that we can
now carry a computer in our pocket that is more powerful than what was
used to fly astronauts to the moon is amazing,” said Marsha Egan, life
coach and author of “Inbox Detox and the Habit of E-Mail Excellence”.
“The ability to be connected anywhere, anytime, 24/7, is both a blessing
and a curse.”
It’s also, in many cases, self-induced. According to a May 2012 report from Google,
80 percent of smartphone owners never leave home without their device and 66 percent use them to access the Internet at least once a day.
Furthermore,
67 percent of cellphone owners find themselves checking their phone for messages, alerts, or calls
— even when they don’t notice their phone ringing or vibrating,
according to Pew Internet. Twenty-nine percent describe their phone as
“something they can’t imagine living without."
'There was a little shock'And social media only exacerbates the situation, says Levi Felix, founder of
The Digital Detox
(motto: Disconnect to Reconnect), which offers no-gadgets-allowed
events and retreats in the San Francisco Bay area. “You post a picture
or status update and then you get a beep or a buzz saying you got a
‘like’ or a retweet, so you go back to your phone. It’s a constant
feedback loop and you get sucked in.”
Digital Detox
At Digital Detox, participants must give up their electronic tethers.
For
Felix, who spent several years working in high-tech before burning out,
the solution is to disconnect completely, albeit temporarily. To that
end, participants in the company’s events surrender their phones,
tablets, even their watches, upon arrival, opting instead for hikes,
yoga sessions and other non-pixelated activities.
“We want to
give people the opportunity to turn off their devices for a little while
and re-evaluate what life is like when you’re not looking at a screen,”
he said.
For Forest Bronzan, CEO of Email Aptitude, a San
Francisco startup, that was exactly what he was looking for when he
handed over his phone at the start of a Digital Detox retreat last
summer.
“It’s one thing to say I’m going to take a day and try
not to check email but at the camp, everybody is doing the same thing
so it sort of forces you to unwind,” he said. “The first day, there was a
little shock — wow, I’m not actually in front of a computer or my phone
— but by the end, you just wanted to stay there.”
Root canal vs. working vacationWhile Digital Detox is about total disengagement, other companies take a less intensive approach. Seattle-based
Via Yoga,
for example, doesn’t forbid personal electronics during its week-long
yoga and surfing retreat, but it does offer a 15-percent discount to
guests who are willing to surrender their electronics for the duration
of their stay.
“We suggest to everyone that
they leave them at home so they have the time and space to enjoy their
vacation,” said owner Susie Cavassa. “But it just seems harder and
harder for people to unplug.”
Digital Detox
At Digital Detox events, attendees who want to share their thoughts are encouraged to type, not text.
One reason, of course, is that many people find it difficult to leave work behind.
“There’s
this expectation about work today that we’re always connected,” said
Ilene Philipson, a clinical psychologist and author of “Married to the
Job.” “If they don’t check their email while they’re out of town, they
come back to thousands of messages.”
In fact, according to a
recent Harris Poll, 54 percent of respondents said that their employer
expects them to work during vacations. Adding to the pain, so to speak:
51 percent said they would rather get a root canal than work on those
vacations.
'No cellphones in the bedroom'“It
seems employees are actually working harder when they're on vacation
than when they're in the office," said Terrie Campbell, vice president
of strategic marketing for Ricoh Americas Corp., which commissioned the
survey. “They’re not able to disengage from their work either physically
or mentally.”
Given the ubiquity of — and
our increasing dependence on — digital devices, no one interviewed for
this story suggests that people permanently disengage from technology.
For those who can’t escape working while on vacation, Egan suggests
setting aside specific times to do so rather than trying to multi-task
during what is supposed to be family time.
And even proponents of
total but temporary detox vacations insist they’re not anti-technology
Luddites, but rather, hoping to gain insights that will help them
navigate the work/life balance a bit better.
“For work, I’m much
more cognizant of the need to recharge,” said Bronzan. “It may not be a
digital detox twice a year but it’s taking an extra day a week and not
be 100-percent consumed 24/7.
“On a personal note, my wife and I now have a ‘no cellphones in the bedroom’ rule.”
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