{"id":1865,"date":"2014-12-01T09:21:10","date_gmt":"2014-12-01T15:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/?p=1865"},"modified":"2014-11-24T09:45:38","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T15:45:38","slug":"my-experiences-with-a-digital-sabbath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/archives\/1865","title":{"rendered":"My Experiences with a Digital Sabbath"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"sabbath
Photo by Center for Jewish History, NYC<\/a> <\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’ve tried a digital sabbath a few times in the past year.\u00a0 If you aren’t familiar with the concept, it means taking one day a week and putting away all your digital devices.\u00a0 No smartphones, tablets, laptops or desktop computers (do people still use those?\u00a0 I do!).\u00a0 For one day, I even skipped making phone calls.\u00a0 Focus on the here and now.\u00a0 Read a book.\u00a0 Play with your kids.\u00a0 Go outside.\u00a0 Do that home improvement project you’ve been meaning to get to.\u00a0 Look, there’s even a website about the digital sabbath<\/a>!<\/p>\n

I’ve done this a few times and it is tough.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 If I have any questions about anything, I reach for my phone or tablet–when does Home Depot open?\u00a0 How do I cook sunchokes?\u00a0 That is relatively easy to counter–just prepare ahead of time, or accept not knowing.\u00a0 I’ve even been known to pull out a copy of the white pages (yes, they still distribute that).<\/p>\n

I also feel I am ‘maximizing’ my time–when I can read about Clojure<\/a> or respond to tweets while brushing my teeth, I feel like I’m doubling my time.\u00a0 It’s the same feeling I have when I run the washing machine and the dishwasher–I can sit on the couch and read because I’m ‘doing’ two jobs already!\u00a0 So, a sabbath removes a major source of attention fragmentation.<\/p>\n

The harder part of a digital sabbath is the non informational uses of my phone.\u00a0 Frankly, I use my phone to escape boredom and frustration.\u00a0 Of course, it is still entirely possible to ‘check out’ with a book or even daydreaming<\/a>, but using a phone makes it so dang easy.\u00a0 I think it is because it feels like you are accomplishing something worthwhile easily–gaining new knowledge, interacting with someone across the world.\u00a0 Maybe because those use to be hard hard tasks–you had to check a book out of the library, or write someone a letter or make an expensive phone call.\u00a0 Now the effort\/reward has a radically decreased numerator, but my brain is still in the 1980s and doesn’t recognize it.<\/p>\n

But.<\/p>\n

While I can learn plenty and make plenty of friends through your phone\/tablet\/internet connected whatzit, a digital sabbath forces you to ive in the now and the here.\u00a0 Escapism is fine in small doses, but a digital sabbath forced me to confront how often I use my phone for that purpose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve tried a digital sabbath a few times in the past year.\u00a0 If you aren’t familiar with the concept, it means taking one day a week and putting away all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology-and-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1865"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1867,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865\/revisions\/1867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}