National Day of Unplugging - Balancing With Technology
News Peg
As crazy as it may sound, the average American devouts approximately 10 hours a day to screen time, according to a Nielsen Company report. Our usage of phones, tablets, laptops and television sets have undoubtedly become a natural need for both survival and progress in the digital world.
As a result, in 2010, March 5th was established as the National Day of Unplugging by an arts and culture nonprofit, Reboot. The Jewish nonprofit organization coined the day as a means to spread awareness of the long-term mental health toll that technological use can have.
Why criticize the internet, the greatest invention of our time? And is unplugging from technology a necessary trend?
Why Unplug
The concept of unplugging, as difficult as it may sound, has its benefits on our mental and emotional health. What tech offers can be addictive and as much as it can connect us, it can also control us. The increased use of social media, artificial intelligence and access to misleading information have entrapped us all in an everlasting battle amongst ourselves and big tech. In Netflix’s 2020 film The Social Dilemma, which highlights our systematic addiction to social media apps, Tristan Harris, the founder of the Center for Humane Technology, fears “technology’s ability to bring out the worst in society.”
According to Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at the San Diego University and author of a Preventive Medicine Reports study as part of the National Survey of Children’s Health, there is a”clear and strong association” between more screen time and lower wellbeing. A University of Gothenburg study found that heavy cellphone usage led to increased stress, depression, anxiety and fatigue amongst kids and youth.
Technology has the tendency to make us lonely and isolate us from our deepest selves as we get caught up in our digital lives. Immersed in the digital world, the relentless ambush of information and news updates, and potentially psychologically impacted by the social media personas created, an unplugging can help us detach from the mess.
It reminds us that the world is much more than that digital universe. It allows us to reflect on how much of our time and effort may be wastefully going into using technology.
We subconsciously begin to flip through our phone when we get a moment to be alone. A pre-COVID New York City subway scene typically would show a swarm of individuals sitting or standing. But the moment almost every individual gets to be comfortable in their position, they’ll naturally begin to look into their phones or plug in their earphones.
But can we learn to be happy and peaceful in the moment with ourselves, without the need for a technological device to entertain us and engage with us? Maybe the opportunity to unplug gives us a window seat into that human potential?
The Case For Staying Plugged In
And yet, we cannot gloss over the fact that plugging in has its benefits in our daily lives.
The pandemic has plugged us in more than ever before. From children attending online school through tablets and laptops to the elderly only connecting with loved ones through phone and video calls, technology is the only medium keeping the world connected when a virus has distanced us all from one another. During such a crucial time when technology is not merely a luxury but a necessity, why should we run away from it?
Even prior to the pandemic, when technology use was “normal,” many have argued against unplugging. The main being whether we can truly and completely unplug. Casey Cep in The New Yorker’s The Pointlessness of Unplugging responds to Reboot’s National Day of Unplugging with: “Unplugging from devices doesn’t stop us from experiencing our lives through their lenses, frames, and formats'' and for most unpluggers “the goal isn’t really abstinence but a return to the technologies with a renewed appreciation of how to use them.”
To reject our devices to reconnect with ourselves and others is contradictory to their original purpose. Technology is designed to connect all and evidently has globalized the world.
The Modern Middle Path?
Maybe it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Maybe we can unplug while staying plugged in. Reboot’s National communications manager said, “we urge people to take this day as a reminder to bring their use of digital devices back in balance; to embrace the wonders of technology but to also embrace the reality and people around them.”
Technology defines our society; it is part of our identity and to completely discard it would be ignoring a part of ourselves. Of course, there are individuals who are able to live without any sort of tech, however, it is hard for the common man to implement that. All we can relate to is their absence and praise their sacrifice.
The key is balance; using tech and our devices in moderation to know ourselves without it. But balance based on what? If technology use is limited to only a certain number of hours per day or fewer social media profile pages, it would not change its role and impact in our life, simply our time consumption. Sure it may give more time for stepping outside, reading a book, etc. but the intention of being plugged in remains the same.
Instead, if balance is brought about by redefining our perspective and outlook towards how we allow technology to impact our values, goals, and ideals would result in a lifestyle change. It can become an instrument for our real purpose without hindering our mindset or priorities. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, a philosophical and spiritual journey, Robert Pirsig’s “object of attack is not all technologies or even technological capacities; rather it is what he calls a technological ‘attitude’ which fails,” as stated in Rhetoric and Madness.
The more plugged in we are, the more there is an imprint of this “technological attitude” on our values, emotions, and moral conduct. This is when we let technology control us instead of us controlling it. Do we use social media for recognition and status? Do we avoid being productive and active by hiding behind a screen? Or, are we self aware of our intentions and have control? Control and balance can only come from the importance we place on displaying our true values and emotions through technology and not because of technology. For this, we must introspect and meditate on what those values, goals and emotions are.
Giving into the modern digital system and running away from technology are both extremities. Reboot’s National Day of Unplugging is an important day to realize the reality of technology’s long term impact and it is a step towards rethinking our relationship with it.
Learning to live with tech, just as we adapt to all our other surroundings, is where the beauty of this lies. Then, we will always be unplugged without having to pull the plug.