Monday, September 30, 2013

Unplugging for a weekend

This weekend I went camping in Moab, Utah, with a group of other students in a wilderness writing class. We were gone from Thursday morning to Saturday evening, and I decided to leave my phone at home for the entire time.

I believe digital technologies, rather than being in opposition to nature, are part of nature. Evolutionary forces have shaped a natural human brain that has extended itself to digital devices. So I am not one to buy into the dichotomy of "nature vs. humans."

We see this dichotomy in the way wilderness is romanticized. Even in the way wilderness is protected, we can find the types of problems that persist that lead us to a place where nature needs to be protected: by designating one part of the earth as "sacred" we are automatically designating the rest of it as something we can kind of trash.

So when I turned off my phone for three days, I tried to avoid falling into the romantic frame of mind that said I was "escaping" from my digital connectedness. Instead, I used the opportunity to evaluate what areas of my life I may be distracted from in my abundance of use of my digital devices.

I was able to flex the muscle of patience for gratification by leaving my devices at home. I generally check my messages every few minutes, but the devices don't actually require that I use them that way. I can wait a few hours instead of a few minutes between usage. And since I've been back from my trip, I've used my phone much less. I've walked much more without headphones in, and while I truly believe there is nothing unnatural about technology, I am happy to remember that off buttons exist on technology as well.

As we think about the "overuse" of technology, I think it is important not to fall into the trap of vilifying it. We don't need to escape our devices, we just need to use them in constructive ways, and that means sometimes lovingly switching them off for a few days.

3 comments:

  1. I really appreciated this, Derrick. I think this is a very healthy perspective. I also was thinking about the dichotomy of nature v. technology today. I concluded that technology is actually a kind of marriage of man and nature because it's natural elements organized by human ingenuity. I'm not sure where to go with that, but I like the idea.

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  2. I too really liked this perspective. I think that so often people either only look at the positives or only look at the negatives of technology, so it is nice to see an understanding of the balance.

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  3. I like your balanced view. Being someone who tends to look at the negative side of technology I appreciate some of the things you said in its favor. I also agree with your dislike of what labeling some places in nature as sacred does to the other places. All earth should be treated respectfully. Unfortunately, our society requires that some places get special protection, otherwise drilling and off-road vehicles would not be checked and soon all places would be trashed.

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