The Technology-Free day experiment

“What?! A technology-free day? I did not get a vote in this!” is how my ten-year old son woke me up on Sunday for our technology-free day. Truthfully, our tech-free day consisted of no TV, no computer, and no cellphones. We still used a CD player, our land-line phone, and my mp-3 player for my first ‘run’ in nearly a decade.

Needless to say, my son was not very enthusiastic about technology-free day. He quickly warmed to the idea when we decided to play over an hour’s worth of Monopoly, but his enthusiasm waned in the afternoon when he realized we were not going to back off of our tech-free plans and he wanted to play computer games. Indeed, he was miserable about it.

My husband on the other hand was thrilled with the idea and could not stop extolling the benefits of the day. He happily “unplugged,” and put the Blackberry that he uses for work on a shelf until Monday morning. Time seemed to expand for him as he used it to go outside and double-dig half of our garden, preparing it for summer vegetables.

I pondered their dissimilar reactions and realized that a tech-free day is going to have different impacts on individuals depending on how much they use technology during the week, and the WAY they utilize it. For my husband, using communication tools is part of his job. He emails on his blackberry, occasionally looks things up on the web, and spends countless hours on the computer sending emails or creating presentation materials. By Friday, he is experiencing ‘communication overload.’

My son, on the other hand, gets comparatively very little “screen time”. During school, they do occasionally use laptops, to create their ‘zines for example. But at home, he plays computer games or Playstation about 5-6 hours per week. Otherwise, he is playing sports or running around outside or reading a book. For him, using the computer is a special treat, something to look forward, a variant activity that uses a disparate section of his brain. Not yet overloaded on Facebook and email, for him, playing computer games can actually be a mental reprieve.

I think there is a missing link here; the story is incomplete. In the original assignment for my Environmental Sociology students, they were asked to substitute their time using technology with time spent in nature and I think that experience in the natural world is the key to making a tech-free day really successful.
For instance, my husband used his tech-free time to dig in the garden. It wasn’t until my son went outside in the woods with his buddy that he forgot about tech-free day. There is something about putting the two pieces together that matters.
A lesson learned: next time we have a tech-free day, make sure we pair it with something fascinating in nature too.
Stay tuned: tomorrow, I will write about the rest of the assignment- exploring wilderness within.