Reader: A short break from the normal hard-hitting commentary you find here, as I present to you a (very) short fictional story.
We look at our phones too much. I’m not trying to break the internet saying something so bold. All of us. We all stare at our phones too much. During the day, first thing when you get up, hours sometimes before you go to bed.
And that’s why I invented the Digital Detox Day. A single day where people across the globe pledge to go without their phones, their social media, their pressing group texts. It did not go as planned.
The irony was not lost on anyone. As millions of Americans pledged to unplug for 24 hours, social media feeds exploded with updates about the very act of disconnecting. #DigitalDetoxDay quickly became the top trending hashtag on Instagram, with users sharing selfies of themselves pointedly not looking at their phones or artfully arranged photos of dusty books and board games.
Across the globe, coffee shops braced for heavy traffic. They had food trucks set up at parks expecting a rush of joggers and picnic goers. A radio host in Lisbon spoke softly about the virtue of a sunrise without notifications, and somewhere in Tokyo a subway car hummed with a quiet chorus of people who exchanged nothing digital but a single shared glance.
In the hours that followed, the first tremors of consequence began to show. A chain of small businesses reported a spike in foot traffic, as if a polite hand had pressed pause on the world and opened a door to the familiar. Streets widened, conversations lengthened, and the clatter of keyboards was replaced by the clink of glass and the rustle of newspaper. Parents swapped tips on breakfast recipes sitting around a real kitchen coffee table. Teens stumbled out of their homes on bicycles. Could this be… working? Then, we hit hour two.
“Just started my digital detox!” proclaimed @TechJunkie88 at 7:01 a.m. “Already feeling so present and zen.” This was followed by hourly updates on their detox progress, each garnering thousands of likes.
Tech moguls couldn’t resist joining in. Elon Musk tweeted, “Enjoying my digital detox by personally responding to every mention. It’s grounding.” Mark Zuckerberg went live on Facebook to discuss the importance of face-to-face interaction while demonstrating new VR avatars.
As the day wore on, a palpable desperation set in. Users began sharing increasingly mundane details of their offline activities. “Just watered my cactus. It’s amazing what you notice when you’re not staring at a screen,” wrote @SocialButterfly23, accompanied by a 10-image slideshow of said cactus.
News outlets couldn’t resist covering the spectacle. “Nation Collectively Fails at Unplugging,” blared headlines, accompanied by compilations of the most popular detox-related posts. Late-night hosts had a field day, with one quipping, “It’s like we’ve discovered a new way to humble-brag about how not-humble we are.”
The #DigitalDetoxFest was to be a major rock concert in Austin, Texas. The idea was that concert-goers were to come with only themselves. It was to be a “true” moment dedicated to music. It ended up being the most X’ed and hash tagged concert since Beyonce’s Super Bowl Halftime Show. TikTok went down for 12 minutes because of all of the traffic.
The addicts could not only give up their addiction for one day, but their mere effort amplified their need to tell the mundane habits and idiosyncrasies of their lives. Detox Day was tweeted, livestreamed, TikTok’ed, and ‘Grammed for the entire universe to see. The day ended not with silence and internal reflection, but with a glowing screen and red, tired eyes. Humans would wake up tomorrow more addicted than they were 24 hours earlier.
