Digital Detoxes: An Escape from the Info Influx

July 2017

Every now and then, as I lie on my bed in the darkness, face illuminated only by the blue-white glow of my smartphone as I scroll through my feeds, a headline will jump out at me: Do You Need a Digital Detox? My typical reaction is to pause for a split second and think something along the lines of eh, probably, before scrolling past it. But recently these somewhat accusatory suggestions for a digital cleanse have become more and more commonplace.

As if I didn’t feel ashamed enough by my daily dumpster dives through Buzzfeed’s trending feed, these days it seems as if I can’t go three scrolls without a smiling young blond woman in a bandana telling me all about her experiences at a digital detox camp, or an all-caps listicle advertising 22 WAYS TO BREAK UP WITH YOUR SMARTPHONE. Article after article on the ‘life changing experience’ that is the digital detox, adorned with pictures of women doing yoga on a mountain or young men with luscious beards and too-white teeth.

“Oh no,” I mutter as I stare into the tortured eyes of someone who I just know would rather be on Instagram. “They’ve infiltrated our ranks.”

And they have. One study has shown that 50% of people between the ages of 16 and 24 think they’re on their phones too much; another places the number closer to 60%, compared to the 40% of people overall.

If you’re anything like me, when you picture someone telling you to ‘get off your phone’ the face that comes to mind is either, a) your mother at the dinner table, or b) an old white man leaning back in a chair, smoking a cigar, and complaining about kids these days with their smart-pads and face-ta-grams. So, when did these faces begin to morph into our own?

All my (admittedly, quite short) life I’ve heard horror stories about what all this technology can do to me. From phone addiction to insomnia, depression to narcissism, I’ve heard it all. Could it be that all these warnings have finally gotten to us? That we’ve pulled our heads out of the sand – or internet, in this case – and realised, hey, maybe this isn’t great for us after all?

…That just doesn’t seem realistic, does it?

Adults have always complained about the state of the younger generation; that’s just how the world works. Before it was smartphones it was television, or radio, or romance novels. When written language was introduced Plato criticised it for turning the youth lazy and eliminating the need for memory. And from what I can tell, the youth didn’t listen – so, what’s changed?

It seems to me that my generation is experiencing nostalgia for a time that we never even lived. A simpler time, one without constant fears of yet another drive-by terrorist attack or Tweet that threatens nuclear warfare. Or, at the very least, one without all this news being delivered straight into our hands.

There’s no denying it: it can be overwhelming. Our phones and the internet are always with us, and young people today are more in touch with the rest of the world than young people have ever been. With this never-ending torrent of information, coupled with the distinctly millennial focus on self-improvement and ‘treating yo self’, I suppose it makes sense that juice cleanses and digital detoxes come hand-in-hand.

Yet there is a distinct difference between taking a break from the info influx and suggesting all our teenagers’ problems will be solved by taking their phones away. As isolating as technology can seem from the outside in, it’s also the best medium we’ve ever had to facilitate staying in contact with friends and family. Not to mention, it’s super useful. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t Google things like ‘what’s the name of that weird nut with the squiggles?’ at any given moment. (Walnut. It’s a walnut.)

And at the end of the day, things like depression or anxiety didn’t just pop into existence when the first iPhone slid off the conveyor belt. Technology isn’t going away, and instead of fearmongering we need to look at the underlying problems that smartphones and internet access have made so apparent.

So, go ahead; escape into the wilderness and leave your phone behind for a weekend. Watch a nice sunset without wondering which angle will get you the most likes. As long as you know that the world around you doesn’t turn off when your phone does.