As you read this,
I’ll be in the midst of a week’s vacation at a northwoods camp my family and I
attend every year. I’ll have my scrapbooking supplies spread out in our
simple-but-not-too-rustic cabin, and I’ll almost surely be humming some tune or
another as I crop and arrange six months’ worth of family photos. In between
scrapping sessions, I’ll take a book down to the lake, hike some trails, perhaps
climb “Big Rock,” and relish good conversation with the camp staff. My girls
will be immersed in the camp experience with others their age, and my husband –
though serving as the camp’s missionary speaker – will make plenty of time for
swimming, canoeing, and tromping through the woods before dawn.
And we’ll all be
unplugged.
The camp is rural
but not off-grid. I could access the Internet at will to keep up with world
news, my Facebook friends’ activities, and traffic to my website. But I won’t.
Instead, I choose
every year to go on a technology fast during our vacation. And I never regret
it – not even for a moment.
Every so often I see
calls – advertised (ironically enough) on Facebook – for folks to purposely
unplug for a week or more. I obviously appreciate the sentiment because I know
the value of time away from technology. But I dislike the notion of going along
with someone else’s timeline. In part, that’s because the event promoters’
chosen dates don’t necessarily work for me on a practical level. But it’s also
because I have a strong conviction about the need to take personal
responsibility. Thus, I don’t want to be told I should fast from technology
with everyone else during a particular week because “someone” decided it; that
puts me in a position of following someone else rather than making a conscious
choice for myself. The distinction might seem small, but it’s quite important.
So you won’t find me
encouraging you to turn off your tech for the duration of my vacation after
finishing this article. However, I highly encourage you to choose for yourself
some time to regularly unplug, whether for a particular week (or more), a
certain day each week, or specific times each day. You decide. But do it.
Involve your spouse and children as well – and stick to it.
Are you breaking out
in a cold sweat at the thought? Are you arguing with the screen you’re reading
this on, insisting that you can’t possibly “afford” to take any sort of break?
If so, that’s actually clear evidence that you’re in definite need of one.
Technology is a wonderful tool. But feeling compulsively tied to it is a sure
symptom of unhealthy addiction.
Look at your
calendars. Talk with your family. Decide and plan ahead. And then pull the
plug. You won’t be sorry.
*****
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