Do you remember the last time you took a break from Facebook? What about social media in general? And how long was it for? A break for some might have to be defined by a few hours, let alone a few days.

I know for myself I was definitely in need of a detox. In part, inspired from my last ABC/KATU appearance.

My cleanse started last week with this growing desire (need, more than anything) to hop off for just a couple days to reboot. But what happened next was quite curious.
I thought to myself, “Hey, if I’m going to pause on Facebook, why not all social media?”

And then, “Why not just take a break from my phone all together? And just keep it turned off so I wouldn’t have any distractions from texting and fewer temptations to want to hop on ‘real quick just to check in’”? (I know myself too well –- btw, sound familiar to anyone?).

Then from there it quickly escalated to, “Well, if I’m going to not turn on my phone I might as well not check email, watch vids on YouTube, and just unplug my wifi. (OMG did he just say no wifi?). That’s right, no electronics OF ANY KIND. No TV. No radio. Nada.
And so I did.
Just.
That.

It helped that my first day I distracted myself by staying at a McMenamin’s and enjoyed their soaking tub. I had a lengthy and enjoyable conversation with the bartender for hours on end conversing about life, the universe, and everything.Y

I came home and that’s when the withdrawals started. The mind can be SO crafty, can’t it?
“Let me just check this one thing. Real quick.”
Or, “I better tell my friends I’m not dead yet.”
But my personal favorite was, “Ermagawd! The world might be on fire! I better hop on just to make sure nuclear holocaust or the arrest of world leaders hasn’t happened and I’m missing out.”

Yes, FOMO is a real thing, btw, and it can be quite strong.

Luckily by keeping the phone OFF I was able to mindfully catch those kneejerk impulses to grab my phone and chuckled to myself instead.

I then went for a long walk and was just present. Present with myself. My breathe. And all the naked branches and diversely painted homes I passed. I played a game with myself and counted the number of times my hands went searching for my phone to take a picture.

14.

Not bad, actually, given how a recent study found a typical cellphone user touches their phone 2,617 times every DAY. (Yes, you did read that right). And the top 10%, by the way? More than 5,400.

So what happened after 48 hours? Did I go rushing back online like a maddened bull coming into the ring?

Tempted, yes. But then I thought, “Hmm. If I can actually go 48 hours…..how much longer can I push the envelope?” So the next day I left my phone in my pocket (still turned off, mind you) and carried a small notepad with me. If I had a question to ask, task to do, book concept, or even a meme creation idea (a growing pastime of mine), I’d jot it down in the notepad. In fact, I even wrote this blog post in the notepad.

I ate more mindfully. I drove and exercised in silence. I went to bed at a decent hour
(and my body began to remember what life was like pre-1994). I smiled at the zombies I passed, well, everywhere, who had their nose glued to those beautiful and alluring pieces of glass, metal, and rubber, reminding myself how I’m not alone.

I reorganized my closets, cleaned my garage, and completed almost all of those “I’ll get to that later” projects. I treated myself a massage and meditated in salt baths. I attended a concert by one of my most favorite musicians (another bucket list item checked!). I even went to the coast for a short retreat and finally completed a manuscript for one of my many side project books.

Over time I began to feel less stressed. Less rushed. Less harried in my body and frayed in my mind. Less edgy with life.

Technology has advanced so quickly it has become this goo that has seamlessly woven itself into the very fabric of our daily lives. Our very existence it can seem like. It hasn’t been all bad, of course, given the convenience it has gifted us. But it has also brought on new headaches. Email, for example, was originally supposed to be a way to streamline and simplify snail mail; but now we have spam, filters placing important emails in the wrong place, and the continuous search for that damn unsub link to get out an email avalanche you didn’t sign up for in the first place.
And it’s not really our fault, either. Our brains have been hijacked by technology, which, the founding engineers of Facebook, for example, would say was done very intentionally.

Over the ensuing days, I also found myself walking slower. Giving more sustained eye contact to others. Striking up conversations with waiters, store clerks, and Air B&B hosts.

In short, I settled more into the moment. More into Life. More into….Me.

I have also been gradually emerging back. I started checking email a couple days ago (limited to strictly once in the morning at 10am and again at 7pm, answering only urgent ones). Yesterday, I gifted myself to return to glorious YouTube and felt like a crack fiend getting a fix (yet still somehow managed to go to bed before midnight). And today, Day EIGHT, or more specifically 185 hours (and 28 minutes), I have reemerged to the world of Facebook’s zero’s and one’s.

My intention going forward is to now avoid being a Luddite but do my best to remain more balanced. How, you say? That question could be answered a number of different ways but one place that I, personally, will start is by carving out one day a week with going “wifi free.” It’s simple – but hard – at the same time. By just unplugging the Internet all together (or at least turning it off on specific devices I’m using) the temptations eliminate themselves. Of course I’ll also have a plan ahead of time for how I’d like to best spend it. And if I can’t make it a full day, even half a day counts as a win.

Willing to take the plunge and try out the 48 hour tech (or at least social media) free? Do it and post on my FB page what it was like with the #My48. I’ll be anxious to read about your experiences.