Eleven hours a day. That’s what my iPhone told me was my average daily time spent looking at a screen. Every Monday my iPhone sends me a notification that seems designed to send me into anxious spiral of screen-based shame.
That can’t be right, I gasp, before spending thirty minutes scrolling through the data to prove what I already know to be true: that I’m addicted to my phone.
I work in social media as a content creator, so it makes sense I spend so much time on my phone, doesn’t it? Well, not really because I also spend a lot of time on my phone doing what can only be described as the digital equivalent of chatting around the water cooler. And, if I’m really honest with myself, I’m on it a lot outside of work and yes, my kids regularly complain that I’m always on my phone.
And it seems I’m not alone. A 2017 study published in the journal Child Development found almost half of the parents surveyed (48%) admitted to around three technology-based interruptions during parent-child interactions per day. And according to UK based social media consultancy, Avocado Social, the pandemic has seen ‘social media usage in 2020 grew at the fastest rate in three years.’
Anecdotally almost every parent I’ve spoken to has agreed that they have spent significantly more time looking at screens since March 2020 and most admitted to having concerns about their inability to put down their phone and switch off.
So, what did I do? I booked myself into Unplugged – a new retreat set up by Hector Hughes and Ben Elliott, who previously worked in marketing and were inspired to set up the retreat after their own inability to put their phones down.
Their beautiful eco-friendly cabins in the middle of a field in East Sussex have firm ground rules: no phones and no access to the internet. On arrival, in return for your smart phone they provide a box filled with an old Nokia phone (yes you can play Snake), an Instamax camera, a map, compass and torch.
When I stepped into my cabin, phone-less, I asked myself the same question the first time I brought my first baby home in a car seat and plonked her in the middle of the living room. “What the hell do I do now?”
As it turns out, there was a lot to do. When you’ve spent eleven hours a day staring at a screen, looking up provides a panoramic view (both metaphorical and literal) that you had forgotten was there. Time expanded, and I discovered there were a lot more hours in the day.
That first day, I went for a walk and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss my usual soundtrack of true crime documentaries but, as a woman alone in a cabin in the woods, it was probably a blessing in disguise. I read three books (Magpie by Elizabeth Day, The Testaments by Margaret Atwood and Everything Is Beautiful by Eleanor Ray), I read the Sunday papers cover to cover and got through an entire edition of Vanity Fair. I also completed a jigsaw, slept for 10 hours a night, and had an afternoon nap for good measure.
Did I miss my phone? Yes, but not for the reasons you’d think. I missed being unable to FaceTime my family but I also recognised how much more I missed them with only voice calls to rely on.
But here’s what I didn’t miss: social media, emails, WhatsApp, text messages. I loved giving up my constant and instant availability. The more I was without it, the more it felt like a violation – one which I was inflicting upon myself. Why was I allowing myself to be left open to the constant barrage of demands on my time and energy with no filter or restrictions?
For three days and nights, I felt as if I’d constructed an impenetrable boundary around myself, a wooden, cabin-shaped fortress, that I could hide and recover behind. I could be still, breathe, think things through without coming under fire from an endless barrage of questions, requests, demands, information. I rediscovered the woman that wasn’t a parent, a content creator, a wife. Just me…and it was nice. Really nice.
So that was my lesson. It’s not the screen itself that’s the problem. It’s the myth that we’ve been sold that we must be a slave to its capabilities. In other words, because a phone can make you accessible to everybody at all times doesn’t mean you should be.
Since the trip, I’ve left countless WhatsApp groups (the school class one was the first I abandoned joyfully), I’ve set up an auto-reply on my emails, and my voicemail very clearly states that I do not listen to any messages so don’t bother leaving one, and I’ve decided that not everyone who emails me needs a reply.
I returned home more rested than I’d ever been. The only bags I carried were the ones I’d stuffed my clothes into – the bags under my eyes had magically disappeared. The kids hollered with delight when I walked through the door and while the trip certainly made me appreciate them a bit more, I suspect it also made them appreciate me a little more too.
And yes, of course I was pleased to have my phone back, but my new-found love of Radio 4 is now the perfect backdrop to cooking. I’m reading more, leaving my phone in another room when I’m with the kids and I insist on leaving it downstairs every night.
Sure, I still slip into bad habits, but being a good parent doesn’t mean that you’re never on your phone, or that your kids never see you using your phone. It does mean that you need boundaries. My kids still hate me being on my phone and, if it’s during working hours, I explain that it’s work. After 5.30pm though, I make sure I’m more present with my family than my followers.
But there are somethings you just can’t avoid. On Monday, my phone pinged with irritating regularity and delivered my weekly screen averages. Zero hours used in the last 72 hours, it said, and honestly, I swear that inanimate object looked genuinely shocked. Me too, I thought, me too.
Visit Unplugged for more information about their 3-day cabin stays that start from £195 pp.