Electrolicious

I made over the halfway point of achieving 52 Nights Unplugged. Then I realized something: the issue wasn’t the screens. I’m a writer and communicator and information obsessive. When I took away my screens, I most often filled the time with reading books or magazines, writing on paper, or talking to friends in person or on the phone … the exact activities I do online, just analog. I made it to Week 30, and then was like “What, so instead of reading online, now I read bad paperbacks?” What’s the value of a bad paperback over reading something from the New Yorker online? The differences started feeling silly. It started feeling like Arbitrary Analog Night.

So I stopped. It was a great experiment, and one I heartily encourage others to try. I think for me, the real challenge would be media fasting. That means no screens, no print, no music, etc. Which starts to sound an awful lot like Vipassana. And honestly? I don’t think I’m there. Yet? Or maybe not at all.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal did a trend piece about former retail clerks who learned to fold clothes working at the Gap, and never gave it up. An old friend emailed me the URL, noting “This totally reminded me of your old Learning To Fold post.”

I laughed. Ha ha. It was totally similar.

Evidently my friend wasn’t the only one to have noticed the similarity, and on Wednesday, when I stepped off my flight to Boston, I had an email waiting on my phone from a journalist in the UK who was writing a related piece:
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“My husband’s not doing the unplugged thing; he doesn’t feel he needs to,” she says. “So there are nights that I’m unplugged and he’s checking his e-mail and surfing on his laptop, and I’m like, ‘Grrrrr.’”

Friday night I was on ABC’s World News with Charlie Gibson, talking about 52 Nights Unplugged in the context of a segment about multi-tasking and time management.

TV is a weird beast, and one I’ve learned a lot about in the last year. For the curious, here’s what this particular experience was like.
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Woowoo! Who’s still on the Unplugged Express? It’s been a while since I wrote about an unplugged night because honestly, they’ve started just feeling like a nice, integrated routine.

I still struggle. I’m doing Unplugged Nights on Tuesdays, which is the night of my mind-bending dance class. That means that I stay busy for over 2 hours of the evening, walking to class, dancing, walking home, sometimes stopping to visit with a friend or have dinner with myself over a cup of ramen and a newspaper.

I did skip dance class one Tuesday, opting to just stay home instead. It was a much harder night, and I was sorely tempted by my screen. Dre was off at circus class and I just wanted to lay around and relax. But I got twitchy about half way through the night, desperate for two things I really wanted and didn’t have: internet and sugar. I could have popped open my laptop or walked to the store for a fix, but instead I moaned about on the couch until Andreas came home and brought ice cream.
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“A lot of times you have nothing to show for hours spent online but a hunch back and a sore butt.”