I will start by offering the very blanket disclaimer that we are all in the practice of offering when writing and sharing Anything Online™ : these are my own personal boundaries, for my own personal life, given my own personal limitations. This is not a standard to live by, nor an expectation I believe anyone else must carry in order to achieve “digital wellbeing.” Consider this what it is: a mere overview of one rebellious woman’s habits – a woman who happens to bristle at the myth that we must participate in Internet Culture in order to live a rich, full, and/or vibrant life.
I keep office hours.
I open my laptop just a few times a day (generally: during the toddler’s nap, sometimes post-bedtime, and if necessary, in the wee hours of the morning before the kids awake). Every now and then, when on deadline, I can steal away some extra windows of time, but for the most part, time spent online is relegated to the margins of the day.
I cannot overstate what this does to my presence as a human being moving in and through the world. I am convinced this is the only way for me to plant my feet where they need planted, to resist thinking about 14 things instead of the person in front of me. As it turns out, “a place for everything and everything in its place,” is as much an antidote for mental load as it is for countertop clutter, and I’ve never met anyone who felt productive working in a junk drawer.
I don’t listen to podcasts.
This isn’t to say that I don’t support the work of podcast hosts. It is hard work, and often very good work, and I am grateful that online mentors are available when/where offline mentors cannot yet be. The yet, however, is key. For many reasons (I plant an ever-hastening AI future firmly in this category), we must seek wisdom and counsel in very offline ways, and we must always be seeking it. In my experience, it is nearly a full-time job to find people to walk through life with, and more often than not, a quick podcast episode can feel like our need for counsel/wisdom/advice is satiated. Why reach out to the Swedish expat down the road when we’ve just heard everything our favorite podcast host knows of lycka?
My own personal rule, then, is this: Buds > earbuds. Before I listen to a podcast episode, I pause to consider the topic. Is advice or counsel needed in that specific area of my life? If so, prayer, solitude, and meditation is often in order. If, over time, I’m lacking practical strategies or deeper clarity, I’ll ask a friend or mentor to share their own lived experience. It’s the slow route, to be sure, and takes far longer than a 35 minute power walk with Apple Beats. But it has served me well. The practice teaches me that I needn’t rely on Wi-Fi for wisdom, and that a podcast can never compete with a pod.
I avoid feeding algorithms.
While it’s certainly more costly to host your own domain/blog/site, I don’t like to participate in algorithm-based content platforms like Substack for many reasons, but top of the list is because I firmly believe in the wisdom that is counting the cost before building the tower. And these platforms are just that – towers of unknown cost. We are not privy to where they are going, nor where they will end. It is important to me that – if I am “hanging my hat” in a digital home, I can accurately count the cost of my participation, that content structures, community expectations, and curation algorithms are 100% transparent. I will never shy from that truth, even though it’s often masked by other truths: many of these platforms host fantastic writers and thinkers and are certainly a producer of some of the more sound ideas in our modern society.
(It is worth noting here that I approach this contradiction with gratitude to periodically visit – as a guest – lovely spaces like this, this, and this with the recognition that there are other creators who have counted the cost and find these platforms to be of immeasurable worth, or at the very least, of high enough value to house said brilliant ideas.)
And so: just as I avoid feeding algorithms, I, too, avoid being fed by them. I would love to have a lofty reason for ditching the corners of the Internet that rely on eerily personalized recommendations (I’m looking at you, Amazon), but I suppose I never did much like to be told what to do/buy/watch/eat/see/say/wear/try/listen/make/read/want/get/be. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there is no better book recommendation than that of your favorite local librarian (Hi, Kim!).
Which points to my next boundary…
I am not on social media.
When I left social media over 3 years ago, I offered no real acknowledgement of my exodus, no strategic announcement, no think piece on the importance of a sabbatical, temporary or otherwise. I just, simply, stopped showing up there and began to show up elsewhere. Truthfully, I had a growing sense of dread that these platforms were becoming an increasingly unhealthy place for anyone to spend time visiting, and now, after years of research and interviewing over 200+ sources in and out of Silicon Valley, I know why.
Worth noting: As someone who made a living, in part, due to a very large following on social media, I am sometimes criticized for my decision to abandon these platforms. (The word privileged is often thrown around.) I will simply offer this: it is a choice available to us all. Yes, it is a hard choice. For many, social media is a way in which we communicate our work or art or creativity, and so, there is a very real loss of opportunity involved, and that loss is impossible to measure.
But so are the fruits gained.
In the United States, in the subsection of the creator’s economy, we often assume that anything other than producing content full-speed-ahead on today’s most popular platforms seems a life of leisure. For many, opting out of social media appears to be a privilege. But opting in? Feeding a system where fake news spreads six times faster than true news? Where social media activity significantly predicts our level of anxiety a full year later? Where the number of users encountering racist hate speech online has nearly doubled in the last two years? Where our youth, plagued by suicidal ideation and mounting anxiety – are killing themselves?
For some, opting out will be the only way to sustain their work, life, or both. I wonder: does that make it a privilege, or a right?
I don’t subscribe to… well, much of anything.
I find it a wonderful practice to “clear the deck” now and again. This is helpful in many avenues of life – taking everything out of your closet/pantry/board game collection and assessing whether or not you are making good use of the item or whether or not someone else might love/use/appreciate it more than you do.
Inboxes are no different. I have, many times, taken an afternoon to unsubscribe to anything and everything. There is little risk in the action; we can re-subscribe to any news or organization we’ll miss hearing from. But I have found that I miss very little. A lean inbox takes less time to check/respond/sift/decide, which means I’m spending less time in response mode (consuming) and more time in send mode (creating).
And send mode is ever-important to me. Before I sit down for “office hours,” it is my general practice to send an email to someone I am grateful for. There are times it is someone I know and love dearly, and there are times it is someone I don’t (or don’t yet). But it is not lost on me that many of us are running with very little hope these days, and whenever possible, if someone has benefitted my life in any way, big or small, I want them to know.
(This is an aside, but worth mentioning: whenever I am asked how an author can possibly still write/sell books in our Very Online World without a Very Online Presence, I cite this practice. My most favorite opportunities have begun with heartfelt appreciation, gratitude, and nothing more.)
I do not carry a smartphone.
I own one, yes, although I’ve changed the settings so much (no Internet, photos, music, apps, etc) that it barely resembles one. But, it’s what I have, for now. It is my practice to avoid carrying it with me as a grand experiment in low-tech living. Can I order brunch without a QR code menu? (Yes.) Can I board a flight across the country without Internet access? (Yes.) Can my kids and I bike to the library without Target/Uber/Google/Starbucks knowing about it? (Yes, and thank goodness for that.)
I carry paper.
On that note, I rely on a pocket notebook/planner for jotting reminders of projects to accomplish during said office hours. Whether booking tickets to the ballet, making hiking plans on a text thread, brainstorming a keynote or restocking the pantry, I can catch any and all ideas on the page and, later, give every item the attention and priority it deserves.
Related: Clowns juggle. I am not a clown.
I do not keep a camera roll.
Whenever I am speaking to another parent, this is often the nail in the coffin for them, and I get it. There are many lovely reasons to document our days (gratitude, beauty, and then some), and I am 100% willing to reckon with the fact that my children will someday turn 18 and lament the fact that their peers have approximately 14 million photos of their first soccer tournament/next soccer tournament/next one after that and they have, oh, a Polaroid of the Viking ship they once made out of cardboard and a few clothespins.
I recognize I am running the risk of explaining this poorly, but after reading many, many historical accounts of Columbus and Magellan and Drake, I have a hard time capturing things that don’t belong to me. My children do not belong to me. They are their own people, with their own experience, and I do not claim any rights to their image/behavior/smiles/moments/existence. As someone who once had a camera follow them into the bathroom during the “documenting” of an influencer event, I am well aware of the likelihood that I am allowing my own experience to color that of my children’s, and yet, so be it. We parent with the tools we’ve got, and discretion, peace, and sacredness are mine.
I do not idolize screens (nor lack thereof).
Perhaps this is the most important “rule” I keep. There is true wisdom in the recognition that, for every mile traveled, there’s a ditch on either side. We can worship screens, and we can worship our lack thereof. We can grip our devices too closely, but we can also grip our device-free stances too tightly.
And so: Can we offer patience for the neighbor who failed to turn off his device and was vehemently, thricely summoned during Tevye’s last If I Were a Rich Man stanza? Can we offer gratitude for the collective knowledge gained and freely given that enables us to fix a leaky dishwasher in a single afternoon? Can we offer peace when we need a break from the noise – gentleness when someone else does?
It is not lost on me that our children will someday soon be able to make their own decisions and boundaries surrounding tech usage, and while my deepest hope is that they will experience the abundant fruits of a low-tech life, I cannot force them (or anyone else) into it. I can tell them what I’ve seen, teach them what I’ve learned, and show them how I live.
And I can seek to love them (or anyone else) whatever happens next.
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At the risk of becoming a killjoy, when it comes to my children, I have some very specific boundaries in place, many of which you can read in The Opt-Out Family. If you’d like, enjoy a free chapter here!
Thank you for sharing, Erin! I finished your book this summer and then promptly handed it over to my husband and we have had so many valuable conversations as a result. I always appreciate your thoughtful ideas.
I think you’re on to something, Erin! In a lot of ways, my habits are similar to yours, but I’m lacking the depth of mindfulness around my phone use you’re demonstrating. I left social media the same time you did (but without the following) and I’m still shocked by how much I don’t miss it. You nicely put into words what I’ve been feeling about the constant documentation of our children, too. I’m completely prepared for them to resent my decision but, who knows, maybe they’ll appreciate it one day. Thank you for your thoughts, Erin.
THIS ONE! I say it about all that you write!! What camera do you have? I’m interested in trying to step down from the phone camera… it is always the things that gets me… and I know there is a solution!