Detoxifying from Tech — a Scam.

I saw a video the other day, on some blog, you know, how we get so consumed in the depths of the internet that we don’t even know where we are anymore. But regardless, it was about “detoxifying ourselves from technology,” even for just a day.

It shows various individuals, strangers, in their mid-twenties and thirties, frolicking around in a rural area, absent from technology and communication with the outside world. They’re smiling, laughing, feeling so unbelievably free, becoming the best of friends with the people around them. They are all participating in this same “program,” so what’s the problem?

This majestic and apparently life-altering experience was a concocted situation, a formula, a sketch and a skit, an act. When you think about “detoxifying yourself,” sure, you may immediately think of a far away, deserted land where the only sounds you hear come from Mother Nature herself, but it’s very unlikely that you actually get to that destination.

You have to improvise. Take a walk outside, go for coffee with a friend, read a book with actual pages to turn, rather than on a tablet (yes, these still exist! and they smell great).

The point is that we’ve fallen so far into social media, so deep inside the rabbit hole, that we are video taping ‘technology detoxifying’ (tech-oxifying?) events and then posting them on social media!!!! Is this inception? I can hear the thoughts in these guinea pigs’ heads, “I’m so happy someone is here to video tape and take pictures of this since we’re not allowed to use our phones.”

I want to believe that the inspiration for all this hype stems from a desire to portray an innocent and genuine message- breathe in the wild air and all that jazz- but it is a scam nonetheless.

Anyone who has ever lost a cellphone knows that we can go much longer than a day without this device, and that it truly is a liberating experience, but what does this mean for humanity that in this video, those 8 hours awake, without technology had such a “transformational” effect? Maybe it means we are addicted. Maybe the fact that the video went viral in the first place is homage to it being a real issue.

But maybe…. we’re taking it a tad too seriously.

Of course, technology has impacted humanity in ways we will not even see through our lifetime, and this impact is exponential. Tech makes us unresponsive at meals with friends, gives us tools to be even more distracted while driving or operating vehicles, allows us to (creepily) stalk our friends, relatives, and ex-lovers through location services and bluetooth, where we probably find things we never needed to find —

But — it also allows us to connect with our cousin who lives across the world, diagnose our own diseases through search engines, snap pictures and videos of timeless memories, and fuel and energize our brain capacity with thousands of games and music apps (yes, I said fuel and energize).

Perhaps the message in that detoxifying video holds a certain cuteness and truth. We should all put down our phones once in a while and really embrace each other and embrace our world as it is, in a pure sense. It probably is better for your 2 year old child to not know what an iPad is yet, or better for your Narcolepsy issues to turn off the TV before 3am.

In all honesty though, we seem to be doing pretty okay. And technology isn’t going to slow down any time soon.

So let’s stop thinking of technology as a “drug” or a “toxin” that we need to detoxify from. Rather think of it as a buddy, someone (something) that we hang out with all the time, love and adore, but once in a while let them know that we just want to go home and chill by ourselves for a bit.

xx