What a 3 day digital detox did for me

The Bali Silent Retreat has two rules: resist the use of any technology and not speak.

This may not seem too difficult to do, but in the hyper-connected world of today, I feared the idea of ​​trying three days – or 72 hours – of silence total, where I could do nothing more than eat, sleep, read or just sit and watch in the nearby rice fields.

It was an ambitious feat for a person who often avoids displaying the data displayed on the screen of my iPhone – the feature launched by Apple that indicates the time spent on a phone in order to reduce the dependence of users to the technology.

Google Android has also implemented a similar feature.

We use our phones a lot.

Just look at what passengers are doing while waiting to board a bus or train in almost every city. It is perhaps not surprising that a study by Nielsen found that American adults spent 10 hours and 30 minutes each day interacting with the media.

The increase in the use of technology has given way to a new billion-dollar mindfulness industry, which includes silent and silent yoga festivals and raves, up to $ 500,000. For meditation applications like Calm and Headspace.

"Technology can be a beneficial force, but I'm not sure I'm using it properly at the moment," Rich Pierson, co-founder and CEO of Headspace, told CNBC.

"Smoking was not a strange thing in the day," he said. "We can revisit our type of smartphone use and how we use technology in the same way that we potentially envision smoking."

The Headspace app now has 45 million users.

Still, it's perhaps ironic that Pierson's disconnect solution is found on a mobile device app.

"The phone is just a piece of metal, plastic and glass," he said. "So, if it's sitting on the table, it does not matter to you." "It's just sitting there, it's an object." But our relationship to that, I think, does not matter. is not quite right. "

Pierson hopes that meditation will become a regular habit for people, just like brushing your teeth every morning.

While his proposed solution is to unplug a few minutes each day, what would a more extreme version – like cutting technology for three consecutive days – do for me?

Here's how my retirement went:

Day 1
I kept instinctively looking for my phone on a whim and wanted to take pictures of a nice rice field at sunset or before taking a meal.

I also had a strong urge to constantly search Google for things that came to mind, such as "What is the population of Indonesia?"

Yet I had to sit without knowing – and move on to a new thought instead.

Day 2

I began to miss interacting with people and listening to music. I am the kind of person who regularly wears headphones and listens to music or a podcast. The lack of constant sound and stimulation was difficult to manage.

At night, I had trouble falling asleep. Usually, you can use your phone to watch digital video, scroll through a stream, or even use a meditation app that can help you fall asleep. In this case, I could not. And the lack of technology made it more difficult to fall asleep at that time.

Day 3
The last day was certainly the most difficult.

Overall, the phone did not fail as a calling call, but I was deprived of everything it provided: music, information, and contacts with people.

After retirement, I felt more relaxed and even more present in conversations. But after a few weeks, my phone habits and screen time are back to normal, and I used to sweep, love and post.

Experience was an effective way to unplug for a relatively long time.

This could even be compared to how some might occasionally do a nutritional detox in their diet. I think that a digital detox could have the same goal.