I am in Brazil, spending a couple of weeks visiting my in-laws. Between family times, my spouse and I take advantage of long weekends to see places in the country we have not previously visited. Two weekends ago we spent four days on Fernando de Noronha, an island group 200 miles off the country’s east coast. We hiked, snorkeled, and enjoyed a short, delayed honeymoon. An unexpected benefit of the trip was getting completely offline and out of touch with “normal life.” Our hotel had no WiFi and the island’s phone service is slow and spotty, providing an excellent opportunity to disconnect.
At baseline, I am far too connected. Ten years ago, I checked email perhaps once or twice per day. I looked at Internet news sites once per day. In the last decade, I have fallen prey to my smartphone, to Connection Creep. If the average person checks email 15 times per day, my contribution to this statistic pulls this number upwards. Do I check email more than once per hour? Definitely. I know this is not good for me. Like most addictions, I continue the behavior even knowing it is against my best interests to do so. Why?
On reflection, my first thought was that I was checking email frequently because I need to do so for my job. I work in clinical trials and if something goes wrong with a child enrolled in one of our studies, it needs to be promptly reported both to the National Institutes of Health and the ethics bodies overseeing our work. It is my job to do this reporting (see “Bad Things”). But participants in our present studies infrequently have Severe Adverse Events. Clearly, I am inventing excuses for my maladaptive behavior. In reality, very little in my job is time-sensitive. Grants, manuscripts, and projects take months to years to accomplish. Out of Office autoreplies work quite well.
This is my opportunity to reset, returning to a more balanced life, enjoying and embracing the world around me.
Perhaps my too frequent email checking is a version of FOMO, Fear of Missing Out. FOMO, of course, is an anxiety disorder resulting from the belief that others are having more fun. Those with FOMO frequently check social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, looking for signs of other’s happiness. Although I rarely check social media, perhaps my problem is a variation on this theme.
Maybe it is more complicated. I know that during the decade over which this has evolved, my general anxiety level has increased. But is anxiety a cause or result of these checks? I receive satisfaction in receiving email messages where another person asks for my help and I promptly act upon their request. This makes me feel wanted, needed, and important. I enjoy tackling big problems, breaking them down into their constituent parts and chipping away. Is my email checking a Pavlovian reward system?
My frequent email checks could be from the distaste of working rapidly before deadlines. I hate this. If there is a deadline for a problem or project, I tackle it immediately. Sent, done, and out of my mind. Perhaps I check email frequently so that I never come up against a deadline, a form of anxiety avoidance. I am so wrapped up in the action and emotion, I have difficulty understanding if the anxiety associated with checking email is its cause or result. Obviously, further personal reflection is needed.
Sometimes the doctor does not need to know the cause of a disease in order to cure it. Whatever is happening, having four days away on a tropical island was wonderful. For the first 24 hours I was uncomfortable with being unable to connect, but eventually got into the groove. When it came time to depart Fernando de Noronha, I wanted to stay for many reasons. One of them was to remain disconnected.
I must learn from this. I need to spend periods away from email and the Internet even when connection is possible. I need to re-embrace the joy of disconnection. Beginning in late July, I have scheduled a 10 day New England camping trip, all by myself. My goal is to cold turkey off email and the connected world. This is my opportunity to reset, returning to a more balanced life, enjoying and embracing the world around me. “We don’t need to search for happiness. Search for stillness because happiness and joy come from that.” “When you feel inner calmness, it feels beautiful. That feeling is you! Beauty is not somewhere else, with another person. It is inside you. Relax so that you can perceive it.”
Amen to that.
