I gave up my cell phone & laptop for the weekend: This is what I learned

It was time for a technology detox. When I left work on Good Friday, I left my laptop at the office. I got home at 3PM and put my mobile phone on a charger that I wouldn't see until Monday at 9AM. And my life free of external, involuntary, technological distraction began... along with the stress of being out of touch for the next 3 days. Here's what I learned.

Biggest Lessons

1. It's really stressful at first, but you get over it.
2. All those people you told "if it's an emergency, contact my significant other" will not have any emergencies suitable for contacting your significant other.
3. It will leave you wanting more.

I learned far more about myself and we'll get to that in a second.

Why in the name of God?

Thanks to the cruel "Screen Time" tracking feature of my Apple iPhone, I found that on the average day, I lift up my phone more than 30 times before 11AM every day and then it gets worse from there. In general, I am using my phone 6+ hours per day and many days are a lot worse. I pay more attention to my phone than the people around me: if it's always within arm's reach and I use it for everything. As a CEO, my outward reason for my phone addiction is that I have to be connected: emails and text messages must be dealt with immediately and without my calendar, I might miss a Very Important Meeting. In reality, I am completely addicted to my cell phone and the whole "I have to stay connected" thing is largely rationalization.

But about a week ago, I looked around at the people in my life and realized that we're all addicted: for some of us, it's about communication. Others live in their games. Some people are on Instagram looking at puppies and kittens. Whatever your thing, you're getting it through either your phone or your laptop.

So why take a break? Mostly to find out 1) if I could make it for 42 hours; and 2) what I could learn from the experience. I settled on Easter weekend (April 19-22).

Things I thought I couldn't live without

Texting. According the aforementioned Evil Screen Time, I knew that I spent 1.5 hours a day on text messaging. To be clear, I'm not a tween: my company uses text messaging more than any other communication vehicle, it's how I stay in contact with friends (who has time for phone calls?), and it's about the only way my kids will talk to me.

Email. While texting is great for short communications and quick back-and-forths, I get around 200 non-spam emails on the average day and about 50 on the average weekend. When you have something longer to say or it's not urgent, email is the way to go.

Navigation. I have long since forgotten how to drive without the little blue dot directing me. There are about four places I felt I could find on my own (work, home, airport, grocery store), but I was sure that I would be lost without Google Maps or Waze.

Games. I am level 40 on Pokemon Go (humble brag) and I have played it every day since July 2016. It's literally the only game on my phone, but I have to keep my daily streak going lest... I don't know, actually, but the stress of missing out on my 7-day rewards was seriously getting to me.

Turns out, I didn't miss Pokemon Go, I'm actually a decent driver without a phone (it's like falling off a bike: you never forget how), and if you're off email, you never know what you're missing. I did miss texting, but not in the way I thought I would. So what did I actually miss?

Things I actually missed

Bitmoji. I genuinely missed sending cute pictures around to my friends of me as the Easter Bunny and receiving their pictures dressed up inside Easter eggs. I kept wanting to sneak peeks at my wife's phone to see if she was getting anything cute, though I did manage to resist.

Information. I had forgotten the days when questions didn't have answers. What's the address of Academy Sports? I didn't know, so I just had to drive in the general area where I thought it was. What time does Salata open? No idea, so I drove there and got to wander outside for a bit until they opened for the day (fun fact: stores still post actual opening/closing hours on their front doors!). What time is the movie Little playing at the AMC Grapevine Mills 30? Who won the Texas Rangers game (when in doubt, assume it's the team they're playing against)? Who is the actor that plays that one character in that movie, oh, come on, you know who I'm talking about, that guy, let me just look it up for you, oh, damn, I can't until Monday, FML?

Calendar. I worried all weekend about my schedule for the upcoming week: when was my first appointment on Monday, what did I have scheduled for after work, was there anything I should be preparing for, when was I leaving town next, where was I supposed to be for Memorial Day weekend? It went on-and-on, and it turns out that none of it matters.

Photos. I didn't realize how many photos I take of the world around me, until I couldn't take any photos at all. I had to use a long-forgotten mental trick called "memory." It made me pay a lot more attention to the world around me, and I genuinely remember more of how I experienced the weekend than if I had been trying to catalog everything through pictures. I'm sure photos would have made this blog more appealing, but I'm doing all this from memory, so all we have are words.

Connection. I wanted to know what my friends and family were doing and to let them know I was thinking of them. Without technology, this is almost impossible nowadays. I had to resort to seeing them in-person: I met a couple of them at a restaurant and we got together with another friend for cycling, a movie, and Game of Thrones. But it turns out that those friends - the ones I spent time with in-person - I felt more deeply connected to than before the weekend started. Texting is about surface-level connecting, but facetime (note that this is different than FaceTime) is about bonding.

What changed over the weekend?

For one, I spent a lot more time outside. I played frisbee, went on a fourteen-mile bike ride, worked out at the gym, walked around some, went to the mall, saw a movie, and in general, I actually experienced more of the world than I normally do. I also didn't trip over a curb once, because unlike normal, I was looking up the whole time.

I read more instead of looking at my phone each night to fall asleep. I made it 100 pages into a book that I've been meaning to read for a year now. And in the morning I didn't reach for my phone on my bedside table either. I tend to forget how immersed you can get in a book when you don't have notifications popping up constantly telling you what you should be doing instead of reading in peace.

I spent a lot of time with my wife this weekend to the point that she was probably sick of me by Sunday night, but we spent real time with each other without any technological distractions. I finally gave her an Edward Break last night by heading off to take a long bath while reading more of my book (Stealing Snow, if you're curious). She fell asleep and I stayed up reading until midnight.

Any lasting effects?

I thought I would be longing for my phone and my laptop (particularly text and emails) at exactly 9AM this morning. I waited until 9AM and opened up my laptop to see what appointment I had at 9AM. It turns out no one needs me - or loves me? - until 10:30AM, so I opened up a browser window to write my first blog entry in many, many months. My cell phone is still face down, and as of 10AM, I still have no idea who texted or emailed me all weekend. I'm blissfully writing away, and I have to admit, I'm not looking forward to going back to my constantly-connected world.

Will giving up your technology addiction for a weekend give you some sort of mystical clarity, a purity of soul that let's you know how the Dalai Lama must feel when he's between text messages? No, but it will help you find out just how addicted you are, and how strong your willpower is. It'll help you understand what you're missing when you're disconnected, and if you're like me, you'll find that in some ways, you actually like it.

Now will I ever do this again? I'll let you know after I log into my email, read all my texts, and see just how bad the world got over the weekend. Until then, I'm blissfully unaware.