Tech Sabbath
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When you type “Sabbath” into Wikimedia Commons to find non-copyrighted images, it’s surprisingly hard to find images NOT related to hit metal band Black Sabbath. Anyway, here’s some dastardly Scots spoiling both a good walk and the Lord’s Day.
Traditionally speaking, the time for New Year’s Resolutions is at the stroke of Midnight on January 1st, as the bubbles still overflow from your champagne flute and life spreads out before you in vistas of possibility. I made a few of those day one resolutions this year, but I also found myself, three weeks into the harsh new year of the Nebraska plains, wind scrubbing the skin off my nose, wanting to make a new one that has felt increasingly urgent in my life. So I did: I’ll be taking every Sunday, for the rest of this year at least, as a Tech Sabbath.
What exactly is a Tech Sabbath, and why commit to one? Pretty simply, a Tech Sabbath is a day off, once a week, from the demands of technology, which spread like Kudzu through your mind and life. The exact shape of this rest might look different for different people. Here’s what mine will entail: from the time I go to bed on Saturday night, until I wake up on Monday morning, I’m committing not to use my computer and all that entails: social media, websites, documents, etc. I don’t have a smart phone, so I’m not including that in my strictures. I’m not a traditional TV watcher either, so I’m reserving the right to watch an occasional basketball game or an episode of something fun with the wife, as these are activities that are, for me, genuinely restful.
So why am I doing this? I have a back and forth struggle to control the role of technology in my life. I think, humbly, that I’m doing better than a lot of people regarding tech addiction, thanks in large part to strictures I’ve put in place for myself: no smartphone, time parameters, etc. But it’s best to measure progress not against others, but against yourself, and I have felt myself, of late, being more beholden to the computer (especially social media) than I would like. The constant hum of tech’s lure throws sand in the gears of my brain, not to mention that it robs me of time better spent elsewhere.
I can tell that tech is messing with my rhythms, especially as I slowly round into form at the beginning of my semester, and adjust to a new schedule. Little chunks of time that I could still spend profitably doing work instead get sucked into useless Twitter binges, or endless checks to see how my Thunder are doing in their quest to tank their season (quite well, thank you). So, tech certainly affects my work productivity, which matters, but not nearly as much as the affects on my personal well being. The old joke about feeling yourself getting fatter when eating a rich meal applies, in a more sinister way: I can actively feel myself getting more anxious about the world, and my place in it, when I’m stuck on social media. It’s an entirely unproductive anxiety.
If I were truly devoted to the life of the mind, I suppose I would blow it all up, go full Luddite and unplug, keeping only the bare necessities for my job: email, and not much else. I’m not prepared to do that right now, because I do think there are goods I have gained from the online world: friendships, catalysts for new intellectual directions, and more. So, it stays, for now. But I’m (re)instituting a Tech Sabbath for myself, something I’ve done in the past, to allow for times of genuine rest and resetting. What previous experience has taught me is that this period of rest will not only benefit me on Sundays, but throughout the week. As a pretty wise dude once said: to those that have, more will be given; I’ve always found that to be true of a sense of rest and focus in my life. When I’m taking the time to set one day apart from the hubbub of virtual life, I suddenly have less need to constantly check in on that world during the rest of the week.
For me, Sunday is the natural day for this rest, as I am already celebrating the Christian Sabbath, where I abstain from work in order to worship, enjoy my family, and simply rest. If my main goal were productivity, I might instead choose a day where I could take the time saved and use it on work, but since I’m mostly after peace and rest, blocking out that time on a day that’s dedicated to rest makes more sense. What will I do instead of checking Twitter compulsively? Well, aside from the things I’m already doing on Sundays (attending Mass, playing with my kids, etc), I’m hoping to fill in the gaps with a little more reading — of a strictly pleasurable variety. Currently I’m making my way through Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit, which I’m greatly enjoying, and I’m also, with the wife, embarked on a year-long reading of War and Peace. But if I use my time well I should have space to squeeze in an extra book, maybe something light like the next Cork O’Connor mystery. And when The Readers Karamazov gears back up soon, I want to make sure I have time for pleasure reading alongside my reading for class and for the podcast.
So here’s my challenge to you, dear readers (all 3 of you): will you join me? It’s not an easy decision to make, for sure. This past year in my Composition classes I’ve themed the courses around technology, and for their personal essays the students can choose to go 24 hours without screens and write about the experience. I haven’t received this semester’s batch yet, but those bold enough to make the choice last semester found it both liberating and terrifying. Many told me they wished it were the sort of thing they could do more often, but they simply did not feel like they could. This is the power that tech exercises over us: the fear that what we will miss is greater than what we’ll gain. Counter this, I’d say: there remains a Sabbath rest, if we’re willing to take it, and it will hold rewards for us that, while not flashy, are deep and meaningful.