{"id":80760,"date":"2026-03-10T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T06:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/?p=80760"},"modified":"2026-03-09T21:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T03:09:11","slug":"hanging-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/hanging-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Hanging up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Hanging<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1996, my colleague Pam Belluck wrote about a 17-year-old so addicted to the internet that he spent \u201cmore than six hours a day online and more than an hour reading his email.\u201d More than an hour on email! It seems quaint now. Pam documented the phenomenon of \u201cnetaholism\u201d and the support groups that were emerging to help people resist the whine of their dial-up modems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here in 2026, our efforts at remediation of our own screen dependence are meeting with mixed results. Most states now have laws to keep phones out of classrooms, but students are destroying the lockable pouches where their devices are stowed. A Wirecutter writer tried to downgrade to a BlackBerry, only to find that life without maps and banking apps was unrealistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But! There\u2019s hope! Even if that hope comes via methods that seem extreme. \u201cWhat used to be innocent enough \u2014 checking social media to see what our friends were up to \u2014 has escalated into a battle of wills in which there can emerge only one victor: man or phone,\u201d my colleague Madison Malone Kircher wrote recently. She reported on Brick, a device that locks down your phone and requires you to tap it against a plastic square in order to reinstate access to certain apps. Desperate times, desperate measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People are repairing to the woods, building full-scale replicas of Thoreau\u2019s cabin at Walden Pond \u2014 no plumbing, no electricity, definitely no Wi-Fi. One modern transcendentalist\u2019s dwelling has just a kerosene lamp, a desk and research materials to keep him from using Google. \u201cIt naturally makes me not want to check email impulsively,\u201d he told The Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes it feels as if our phones are our captors, and we\u2019re in perpetual search for a device or a detox that will release us. We\u2019re constantly negotiating: I\u2019ll keep my devices out of the bedroom. I\u2019ll wait 15 minutes after waking before checking social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No matter how reasonable our efforts to decrease dependency, however, there\u2019s frequently an element of deprivation involved. More effective, perhaps, are solutions that fill the empty space. I have a friend who reads in the morning before checking her phone, another who meditates. Replacing checking your phone with something else seems like a step in the right direction. You can\u2019t have your phone for this period of time, but you can have this other very satisfying activity. It sounds like the way you\u2019d bargain with a child, but for many of us, our relationship with our phones is not so different from a child\u2019s with a blankie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My colleague Callie Holtermann reported recently on a group of students at St. John\u2019s College in Santa Fe, N.M., who undertook a six-day tech fast. This led them to insights that seem elementary to anyone who remembers life before phones, but profound when you consider how commonplace it has become to be present but not really there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m in a situation where I have nothing to do, I cannot find someone to hang out with other than the people who are around me,\u201d one student reported. \u201cIn not being able to communicate over distance, I have to be more invested in communicating where I am.\u201d It seems simple: communicating where we are. But how often are we truly invested in that? How often can we say we\u2019re not at least partly invested in communicating elsewhere, only half-aware of what\u2019s happening before us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organizer of the tech fast told Callie about a previous project to establish a tech-free dorm at St. John\u2019s. Over time, the project\u2019s focus shifted from being \u201canti-tech\u201d to \u201cpro-community.\u201d Yes! That feels like an important distinction as we try to unshackle ourselves from constant phone checking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than frame our plight as what we\u2019re against, rather than focusing on what we are cutting out, we might frame it around what we\u2019re seeking: community, connection, presence. It\u2019s easy to list all the ways in which screen dependence detracts from our lives, but we don\u2019t often articulate what becomes possible on the other side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve taken to picturing moments and events without phones. What would this scene look like if we couldn\u2019t beat a digital retreat as soon as the conversation lagged? What would this car ride, this bar, this meeting, this lying-around-on-a-Saturday-afternoon look like if no one were checking their device? First, it feels a little weird \u2014 all that empty space. But then you get to imagine what would fill it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an interesting thought exercise. What do we want our lives to look like? How do we bring the benefits of the cabin in the woods to our everyday routines? As a scholar of American Transcendentalism put it to The Times, \u201cThe whole point for Thoreau was a deliberate experiment in simplifying our wants \u2014 what we think we want \u2014 and trying to get to the heart of what it means to live a full life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n