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How a 48-Hour Digital Fast Can Change Your Life | Jeff Stern | TEDxPiscataquaRiver


I have always been a late adopter but
this is why I finally decided to get an
iPhone so I could take pictures like
these and yes leo has a flask in that
picture I’ve always been somewhat
skeptical about the latest technology
and you can see I have passed my
sceptical nature on to my children when
I first got my new phone I was very
disciplined about using it I would take
it out take somewhere in the
neighborhood of 5,000 pictures every day
of my newborn son and then I would put
it away and that’s all I used it for and
I was lucky I had paternity leave which
meant that I got to spend long days with
Leo going on walks
reading books going to the park it was
great I really loved spending all that
time with him but the thing about babies
is they’re not great conversationalist
so Leo and I would be at the park and he
would be happily playing with a rock and
I would sometimes wish I had someone to
talk to who had who knew more than two
words and that’s when I first began to
fully appreciate the power of my new
phone and I was immediately sucked in
you you’ve all been there
it provided companionship news
entertainment anything I could want and
what was wrong with that Leo and I were
both happy he had his smooth shiny rock
and I had my smooth shiny phone but one
day I looked up from my phone and Leo
was gone I had gone down the rabbit hole
I didn’t know how long I didn’t know how
much time has passed
fortunately Leo had just crawled to
another part of the playground where I
couldn’t see him but this was alarming
to say the least I had been experiencing
what media scholar Douglas rushkoff
calls digi free Nia which means being in
two places at the same time but actually
being neither place how often was I
doing this what kind of a driver had I
become what kind of a dinner companion
what kind of an employee I realized that
I had taken my relationship with my
phone to the next level I brought it to
bed with me every night it was the first
thing I checked in with in the morning
this
thing that was supposed to just fill in
the empty spaces between important
events had instead become all I did I
was ready to admit that I had a problem
and I wanted to do something about it so
my first thought was to go cold turkey I
would build a big bonfire and just burn
all my devices and a big ceremonial fire
I would go back to using landlines and
payphones I would dust off my my crank
record player and go off the grid but
I’m not a Luddite technology is part of
my job and what I really wanted was just
to experience life without this digital
stuff to be reminded what that was like
and so I settled on this idea of a fast
concentrated break from all my devices
and because I’m a teacher I decided I
wanted to explore this through a class
so I designed this class and I was
curious what millenials thought about
this did they struggle with addiction
the way I did did they did it have
negative effects on their relationships
so first day of class I gave him the
syllabus and I introduced them to this
central project of our class which was
gonna be this thing the digital fast and
I laid out the ground rules for them
starting on Friday evening going until
Sunday evening they would disconnect all
devices and screens all this stuff and
there was this panic there they they
they they freaked out I mean it was you
could feel it in the air and I really
felt and I never felt this before as a
teacher like they were moments away from
just packing up their bags and walking
out the door and dropping the class
because they were gonna refuse to do
this and they explained their panic to
me how are we supposed to stay in touch
with our parents how’re we supposed to
make plans with our friends how are we
gonna know what’s going on in the world
what about Netflix music boredom this is
gonna be impossible professor Stern why
are you making us do this why do you
hate us and I really think there was for
some of them this sense that I was
punishing them because I wanted them to
experience the kind of boring childhood
that I had without snapchat and
and YouTube and I explained to them that
even though they’re digital natives and
I’m not that I was addicted just like
them and they really didn’t like that
word addicted that really struck a nerve
with them how can you be addicted to
something that is so essential to your
life can you be addicted to air but to
their credit they went on the digital
fast
the Boston Globe wrote an article about
us well I should say that some of them
went on the digital fast about 2/3 of my
students successfully went screen and
device free for the whole 48 hour period
along with me another handful failed
within the first hour they just failed
miserably didn’t even try
and then another small group were able
to give up certain aspects of their
devices but but not others and
ultimately I decided that it was all a
really good experience for us because
even failing even preparing to go on a
digital fast really helps you learn what
your digital habits are and that’s
valuable information of course it is
much better to actually go on a digital
fast I think so I really like this
experience and I wanted to kind of keep
it going so I gave some talks here in
Portsmouth about the digital fast and
there started to be some interest in
doing a seacoast version of it so
together with a great group of people
we created the seacoast digital fast
which has now happened the past two
August’s some of you may have
participated in it and it’s been it’s
been great and we’re gonna continue
doing it so what happens when you shut
down your screens for a weekend well the
first thing that happens is that you
immediately want to document this really
cool thing that you’re doing so for the
Seacoast digital fast this past August
we had a kickoff party here right here
at 3s so participants could gather and
we could all kind of communally shut
down our devices together and so many of
us have the same experience as we were
shutting down our phones we wanted to
use those phones to take pictures of
ourselves shutting down our phones which
we could then post to social media and
talk about this really cool thing we
were doing and wait for the likes and
comments to roll in and that’s one of
many things that you are kind of a
tune – when you’re on a digital fast you
notice every time you have that twitchy
urge to check your phone it’s so much
like the urge to smoke another cigarette
when you’re trying to quit or have a
drink or eat another potato chip even
though you’re not hungry
it’s not that often associated to an
actual need but it’s more often
associated with some kind of vague time
filler or crutch and a lot of times you
just do it because someone else took out
their phone another thing you notice is
it feels really good to do one thing at
a time
a woman who participated in the digital
fast told me that she felt like she was
a much better parent during that weekend
because she was more calm and present
with her kids she wasn’t constantly
being pulled away by all these
ultimately meaningless little tasks when
you’re cooking you’re cooking when
you’re having a conversation you’re
having a conversation when you’re
playing with your kids you’re playing
with your kids without our screens we
are more connected to the world without
GPS we learn how to get around we learn
more about where we live we inevitably
spend more time outside you pay more
attention to natural cycles like sunrise
and sunset and what your body is telling
you one of my students told me that the
sleep that he got during the digital
fast weekend was some of the best sleep
he ever can remember getting our news
feeds or all of our feeds news
entertainment social twitter facebook
instagram never end the feeds never end
and yet when we’re scrolling through
them in the back of our head we’re
thinking I’m gonna get caught up I’m
gonna get to the end of this story right
but there is no end right
Trump is never going to stop right so
every once in a while it feels good to
just acknowledge that the feeds will
never end that you’ll never be caught up
and step away from it you can always go
back to it a digital faster observe to
me that during that weekend if there was
some kind of a world catastrophe he
would hear people yelling in the street
about it otherwise he was okay taking
the chance of taking 48 hours away from
the information and on Monday he could
check back in
probably get caught up inside of ten
minutes and he was pretty confident that
he wouldn’t have missed that much our
devices allow us to constantly cancel
and reschedule and live this sort of
frantic non-committal life when I was
doing the digital fast this past summer
I made plans with my brother-in-law to
go for a run and because we were on a
digital fast I couldn’t text him about
it we had to make the plans you know on
Friday so we were gonna meet on Sunday
afternoon at 3 p.m. at the corner of
broad and middle and when I woke up on
Sunday morning I didn’t feel like going
for a run so I wanted to cancel my plans
with Jake but that would have involved
walking downtown somehow finding him and
cancelling which seemed really difficult
and kind of ridiculous and so I kept my
plans and I went for the run and I’m
better for it people are more
complicated offline the internet
presents a much more extreme version of
everything it’s much easier to see
people in black and white terms online
it’s much easier to cast people as
unredeemable
but offline on a digital fast we return
to the Messier and more complicated
world of actual human beings no one is
just a trump voter they might also be a
trump voter who is your really nice
neighbor who seems to love their kids as
much as you do and loves flo rida as
much as you do this one really hit home
with me the power of doing nothing when
I was in my early 20s I played in the
band and I used to do all of my lyric
writing during these little moments of
downtime that I would have when I was
when I was bored or spacing out riding
the bus waiting in line for coffee with
nothing to do at my job that was when I
did my best creative thinking I never
thought about it at the time but now I
realize that that valuable in-between
spacing out time is now filled with this
mindless scrolling on my phone and when
I went on the digital fast that time
came back to me do you really need to
share everything you do with everyone in
the world every day all the time yes
it’s great for the grandparents to see
pictures from the first day of school
and yes we all agree your new haircut
looks great but how much is lost when we
make everything public isn’t it nice to
be able to say that you really did just
have to be there besides how much of
some once-in-a-lifetime gathering of old
friends do you want to waste trying to
document everything so on Sunday night
or Monday morning when you power
everything back on and reconnect you
might realize some things and you might
decide to make some changes they might
be small changes you might decide to
take facebook off your phone you might
decide that you’re not gonna take it to
bed with you anymore
or that you’re gonna wait 15 minutes
every morning before you turn it on and
just enjoy your coffee and silence maybe
you’ll decide you’re not going to bring
it to the dinner table with you or
you’re not gonna use it on Sundays you
might realize what’s really sacred to
you the point of the digital fast is to
take back control in the relationship
these devices that we carry around with
us too often set the terms they dictate
when we abruptly end a conversation they
take our attention away from our kids
and yes sometimes they even listen in on
our conversations and keep track of
where we are and how we’re spending our
money when you go on a digital fast you
are reminded that you have a lot more
say in setting the terms than you might
think my students are immersed in the
digital world so am I most likely so are
you so it’s not an option for most of us
to opt out or disengage but that’s not
what this is about either this is about
examining our relationship to technology
is it a healthy relationship
these devices that we carry around our
miraculous and powerful tools I realize
that more profoundly than ever but they
are tools and we typically put tools
away when we’re done using them I think
this is a great and valuable experience
for everyone to try at least once a year
and ask yourself if you can’t go 48
hours in a year without your devices and
screens what does that say about your
relationship to your family your work
your community and the natural world so
what do you say these guys might be
skeptical but I think you can do it
thanks
[Applause]
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