Apparently, some companies have tech free days – digital detox Fridays. Not just device-free meetings but, the entire day without phones, tablets, laptops, watches…
Is this as insane as the whole casual dress Friday saga that plagued companies in the 1990s? Quite possibly.
This past July, I did a digital detox for 13 days while travelling. I used my phone once to check a map in foreign country (Yes, I had a roaming data plan, I didn’t want to sell a kidney to pay for ‘standard rates’!)
And, you know what? It was awesome. I didn’t tell anyone I was going offline, I just did it. People did wonder where I’d gone. I got emails, direct messages, Facebook emails asking where I was. Yet, oddly, the whole online world continued to turn without me.
Maybe that’s why I like this this video from my favourite startup parody Vooza so much – it hits on the truth. The online world continues to turn without us, whether we’re online or off.
Digital detox can be healthy. As Jerry Seinfeld once said – ‘you’ve got to give people a chance to miss you a little‘.
How did I feel during the digital detox? If I had to pick one person from this Vooza video to sum up my feelings, it would be ‘I felt like doing my laundry in a river’. It surprised me that I felt that way as I’ve been online, almost constantly, for 20 years.
Each response from the Vooza team to the detox situation, while amusing, also shows real insight into customer behaviour. This is how people feel when they are away from their devices, from Facebook and, from Instagram.
Digital detox – Vooza
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