The Screen-Free Day: A Complete How-To Guide

OK, sorry. Where was I?

Right. A screen-free day is where you go from dawn to dusk without looking at a laptop, phone or TV. It sounds easy, but for me — form whom a technologically-mediated reality is reality — it’s like kicking an addiction.

Thinking of trying a screen-free day yourself? I’ve prepared a comprehensive How-To Guide. Follow these simple instructions and you’ll be on your way to post-digital enlightenment.

The Screen-Free Day: A Complete How-To Guide

1. Wake up and lie there. Just lie there. Don’t start the Sunday crossword or reply to any texts that came in last night. Don’t log an episode of ‘House of Cards.’ Look at the sunlight coming in under the curtains. Wonder what time it is.

2. Go outside. You’ll have no idea what the temperature is, so open the window and study passerby’s outfits to gauge. Get it mostly right.

Feel like you’re make a mistake by going outside without your phone. As you walk further away from your apartment, allow the feeling intensify. What if you get stuck in an elevator? Wonder if your phone is thinking of you.

3. (Important) Be sure to reach frequently for your absent phone as though it’s a phantom limb, the loss of which you haven’t quite accepted. Around hour 2 of your walk, become distinctly aware of how your phone is a safety blanket. Think about how the phone offers an immediate escape into a world of stimulation and ego-gratification.

Remember that, with the phone, you can voyeuristically study the lives of friends and enemies and strangers halfway around the globe.

Remember that, with the phone, you can blot out the world with iTunes, or you can capture and store the most remarkable parts of it for later appreciation.

Remember that, with the phone, you can flit from experience to experience, dipping a toe in hundreds of realities outside your own.

Remember all this because you’re now without the phone, and the world around you is stunning in its immediacy and nowness. The birds chirp and a siren goes off and you have no choice other than to listen.

4. Discover a striking bust of Nikolai Tesla outside a church on 25th street. Marvel at how gorgeous the Flatiron building really is. Read the plaque in front of the General Worth monument. Notice how much you’re noticing. Tilt your head back and look up at the rooftops.

5. Catch a crowded subway train and long deeply for your headphones. In some zen monasteries, they take ice-cold showers, pull weeds for 12-hour shifts and hit you with sticks if you slouch during meditation. The idea is that discomfort is a mental construct, that altering your relationship with it is learnable. That one’s sense of self is like a root; the weeds will only make it stronger.

Wonder how the monks would handle a packed-to-the-gills 6 train on a Saturday afternoon as it rumbles to a halt for the third time in as many minutes, and the group of teenagers surrounding you reaches the apex of their “who can talk in the loudest voice” contest (gold medals, all).

6. Become awestruck by the cherry blossoms in Central Park. The world will be all blue on this chilly April day, like it’s been run through the Nashville filter. The white and pink cherry blossoms seem even more delicate as they sit, imperiously, on the twisted branches and chilly mud. Stand in front of the trees and drink them in.

7. Tear up at the park bench inscriptions. Anyone can sponsor a Central Park bench and put a message on a plaque.

“For Susan — book readers welcome.”

Walk among them, fascinated. Read every one.

“M, will you marry me? With undying love, T.”

Reach for your phone to take a picture.

“To Samson and Delilah, my twin pugs. This was your favorite walk.”

But of course, it isn’t there.

“A bench for a mensch. We love you, Mort.”

And so you walk on, just passing through, soon in a different place.

“For Nikki. Beloved daughter, sister and granddaughter. 1979–1998.”

8. Tear up at the Balto statue. Oh come on! This soon after the benches. So unfair. Read about how the huskies ran day and night through subzero cold to deliver the medicine. Hope that you will be as brave as Balto. Resolve to pet the next dog you see.

9. The next dog you see will be nose-deep in another dog’s behind, so hold off. Overhear a little boy asking his mother about this. Mom explains that dogs sniff butts to say hello. The child is not on board; the explanation opens a new line of questioning. Dad asks, a little loudly, “Who wants ice cream?”

10. Become achingly aware of how much time there is in the day. Without no internet to surf, no Netflix to zone out to, your attention will be drawn to the minutes that tick by slowly. This will be ok.

11. Read for hours. As the sun goes down and you run out of things to do, read.

12. Fall asleep, wondering why you don’t do this more often. With your newfound appreciation of how much life there is outside the glowing 4.5" rectangle in your pocket, promise yourself that you’ll be better about keeping your digital demons in check.

13. Wake up the next morning and immediately check your phone. Reply to some texts, ignore some emails. Watch ‘House of Cards’ over breakfast.

Realize the fantasy of disconnection is over.

Watch as your reality shifts back into a digitally-mediated one, where a messy cluster of ones and zeroes that exist only between a screen and your eyes occupies the majority of your conscious awareness.

Smile a bit. Turn your phone off, and go for a walk.