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My Three-Day Odyssey in Digital Abstinence
No Email, No Mobile Phoneâ€"No Online Period! I Went Dark for 72 Hours!
Like to many people I am addicted to email. I check mine 50 times a day, some days even more. When I am away from my computer, I am constantly logging on to my Gmail account from my mobile phone. Whether I am at the gym on the treadmill, waiting in a cue to order coffee and a bagel afterwards, or at a traffic light on the way home from the gymâ€"it's an automatic reflexâ€"I reach for the mobile phone. The urge to remain connected to the world is a powerful one to break.
Is my behavior an impulsive-compulsive disorder? I decided to find out.
As a self-administered and self-imposed experiment, I went dark for 72 hours beginning 6:00 AM Sunday morning August 3 and did not power up my laptop or mobile phone again until 5:59 AM on Wednesday August 6. My mobile phone was given to my wife, with instructions not to return it to me until Wednesday.
We're all probably guilty to one degree or another of checking our email while on vacation, calling the office for messages while on the beach tanning, logging-on to Facebook or Linkedin, or using Twitter to update our status from the computer conveniently located in the hotel's lobby or our mobile phone. So on Sunday morning I, along with my wife, Annette, daughter, Michelle, and grandson, Alan, went on a three-day mini-vacation to the New Jersey Shore.
I maintained a handwritten diary of how things went, which is now published on my personal blog. I undertook the project to find a way to curb my voracious digital appetite, as well help others who may be in the same predicament.
There were some interesting surprises, which is why I included the subtitle "How Online Addiction, Seaside Heights NJ and Donald Trump's TV Show "The Apprentice" - three unlikely topics - collided during my three-day odyssey."