Reflection Four: Another Failed Diet

 Spend a day offline, she said. Turn off social media, don’t use texts, use the internet for school or work only, she said. Write about this digital detox, she said.

Livin’ la vida Luddite*, it turns out, is less of a digital detox and more of a digital crash diet. And like all crash diets  it was doomed to fail.

Sure, I had charmingly pastoral ideas of how to occupy a digi-free day. I could go for a long country drive; perhaps pack my neglected sketchbook and attempt to charcoal out some cows. Or throw my bike in the back of the CRV and find a leafy path to cycle. Or pull out the Back Roads Map Book and discover a new hiking and fishing destination. But the reality of being (embarrassingly, at 45) a learner driver who requires an adult supervisor in the passenger seat soon quashed this notion. Oh well, I thought, I can spend the day sewing, or making candles, or any of the other domestic pursuits I so nerdily enjoy.

Several days in a row, foggily waiting for the caffeine to hit, I found myself texting, posting items to Facebook marketplace, making sales arrangements, and all manner of other digital deeds. Once caffeine kicked in I’d come to the realization that, yet again, I’d strayed from the path of virtue, and like any diet, once damaged, declare I’d start the next day. Rinse, repeat. Ad nauseum.

It turns out that — even without crapping the bed of intent repeatedly — there is really no good time for a day away from digital life. Buyers lose interest when enquiries go without a response, and it turns out that being persona non-response when you’re on a mental health leave raises maternal alarm bells. Plus, all the inspiration and instruction for those Ma Ingalls past-times? The inspiration and instructions are online.

Did I fail at this “detox”? Yes. Am I somewhat ashamed of that? Also yes. Did this failure provide valuable insight into my dependence on the ones and zeroes that through some sorcery connect me to the digital world? Yes again. So in a sense my failed detox was, in fact, a success.

 * Used in the (incorrect) contemporary context of one who is opposed to technological advances rather than the correct historical context of textile historians who feared their craft and livelihoods would be eradicated by machines. Spoiler alert – they weren’t wrong.