My Digital Sabbath Experiment

 For a while now, I've been toying with the idea of trying a Digital Sabbath -- essentially, 24 hours away from technology. I've wanted to see what might happen if I walked away from my smartphone apps for a full day. Would I be anxious? Would I fixate on the FOMO? Would I immediately feel liberated and creative and more intelligent? 

Hmm. 

Well, the first step was to define my parameters. What would this Digital Sabbath look like? When would it happen? And this, my friends, is where things got tricky. The work week was out, totally, for obvious reasons. So that left Friday night through Sunday night open. I often use Sunday afternoon/evening as a time to prep for the week ahead, so I decided to try Friday night through Saturday night. 

When. Check. 

What would it look like became even messier, and I struggled with discerning whether I was searching for loopholes or had valid reasons for what my phone use might look like during these 24 hours. I, like many others, use my phone for good things, dammit. Like listening to educational podcasts, accessing my yoga teacher's YouTube channel, and communicating with my family. What about my smart watch? Drawing these lines in the sand started to look less like this 


and more like this 

but eventually I landed on these rules: No social media, no YouTube, no Audible, no Spotify, no email (work or personal), and no other apps. If a text or call from my immediate family came through, I'd answer it. 

And so, that's what I did from Friday night at 8 PM to Saturday night at 8 PM. What did I notice:

* Wow, I missed a lot of calls and texts from people about the election and my vote. 
* I missed a lot of nothing on Facebook. 
* I had time to think my own thoughts, as opposed to the thoughts of whichever podcaster in my ear. 
* During that time, I decided to re-start blogging, and I generated a 2-page list of topic ideas. 
* I talked on the phone with my son who lives across the country and didn't feel the need to rush off to the next thing. 
* I made live music with a flute choir I play with (which, to be fair, I do every Saturday morning), and I felt more fully present. 
* I practiced yoga (gulp) on my own, without Adrienne telling me what to do next (ya know, since YouTube was off limits). I followed my body & let her tell me what I needed to do next. 

I've decided that I need a Digital Sabbath on a regular -- dare I say weekly? -- basis. It may end up being a kind of "movable Sabbath," based on the demands of my schedule, but I have no problem with that type of flexibility. 

Maybe you need a Digital Sabbath, too. Maybe you think Sabbath is a loaded word, so call it whatever you want. Maybe 24 hours feels scary as hell, and you need to start with 12 hours. Maybe you need a regular boundary, and you start unplugging at 7 PM every night. Whatever works for you -- I promise you some form of separation from your smartphone is worth trying. 








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