things I did in October instead of dinking around on the Internet:
- listened to a baseball game on the radio while making a pot of lentil stew
- reworked my personal website (I think that counts)
- developed a new workshop and then decided not to teach it (radical private-time protection!)
- tidied my bench at work
- wrote letters and postcards (though admittedly not all the ones I wanted to!)
- made a new friend
- drew in my notebook
- read 9+ books
- learned how to make a mix in GarageBand
- devised a list of atypical ways you can tell that it’s raining (people walk funny)
- leaned in very close to the page and watched the ink flow from my pen
- did the dishes
- eavesdropped on the bus (“driver, can you ask the passengers to move to the back so they don’t conjugate around my chair?”)
- paid more attention to the cat
- walked all over
And then, as soon as I was back into it, someone tweeted about this article (the irony makes me chuckle):
What Happened to Downtime? The Extinction of Deep Thinking and Sacred Space by Scott Belsky. What I found most striking about the piece was his assertion that, by being constantly connected to stimuli, we are depriving ourselves of the creative pause. You know, the way all your best ideas come in the shower (or, for me, when I’m on a long run)? Turns out that’s not coincidence. It’s got more to do with finally being quiet enough to let an idea peek out.
Other highlights:
Why do we give up our sacred space so easily? Because space is scary. During these temporary voids of distraction, our minds return to the uncertainty and fears that plague all of us. To escape this chasm of self-doubt and unanswered questions, you tune into all of the activity and data for reassurance.
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Our insatiable need to tune into information – at the expense of savoring our downtime – is a form of “work” (something I call “insecurity work”) that we do to reassure ourselves.
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…when you allow yourself to just look out the window for 10 minutes –and ponder– your brain will start working in a more creative way. It will grasp ideas from unexpected places.
Nowhere in the article does Belsky say that great ideas happen while we’re playing Farmville.
So, you know, I’m still working on all of this. Having ideas and thoughts. I’m still planning to turn this into a zine (which I will make available along with my other stuff on my superdilettante website – it’s currently undergoing a rehaul), so I don’t want to share everything here. But I’m really enjoying your thoughts on the matter. Don’t be afraid to disagree, either.
–Carolee
Well, I definitely want the zine!
Aw, Pamela. Such support.
maybe i am a weird person, but i don’t depend on my cell phone for everything, so i’m less connected to a lot of things. it’s probably because i don’t have a smart phone so i am less likely to look at it. i also don’t have an ipod.i admit, i often mindlessly browse the internet and it’s such a time sucker and then i don’t do enough art/reading/other stuff. to get around that i try to remember to put myself into new experiences, whether it’s with friends or just by myself.
sometimes i like to sit in a park and just lie there and think. i’m more contemplative and less distracted. i’m not sure where i’m going with this, but i liked what you had to say about your experiment and how downtime doesn’t really seem to be downtime anymore. i mean, the fact that my university allows 24/7 access to ilearn means as students, our teachers have the right to impose deadlines that fall on a weekend to upload essays.
well, Annie, you are weird–but in the best way possible.
yeah, I can see how the 24-hour submission window would cut into empty time. It seems like another way in which technology is not serving us properly. I wonder what would happen if you told your professors you belonged to a religious group that required disconnecting on weekends? Would that even fly?
your experiment has me thinking! i quit my corporate job 9 months ago, and gave up my blackberry. i can’t tell you how FREEING it was for me to go away from home and really be AWAY and truly be WITH the person i was hanging out with! i just purchased a cell phone (for emergencies) and i hope that i can remain disconnected (it will be on silent 99% of the time
i read an article some time ago that said that the number of creations & inventions will be fewer and fewer over the next several years because children are over-scheduled. instead of freely playing and imagining, parents run them from one class to the next and constantly structure their time with lessons, sports & playdates. there is little time for free play, alone time and the general boredom that we might have experienced as kids. because of this, creativity isn’t developed and it might have astounding effects on our future as a society.
when i think about it, the best games of my childhood were dreamt up during the dog days of summer…and i guess as adults we need this too. thanks for sharing this article!
I read the same article –was it in Newsweek?– and I definitely think it will be a factor. When I think of all the hours I spent just doing nothing, playing in the dirt (or pretending I owned a fleet of invisible horses that I would “ride” around the neighborhood)…it definitely honed my ability to imagine. And think of the hours spent reading that seem to go by in a flash–it’s that concentration that allows deep, atypical thinking.
I don’t want to give up technology, and I don’t think we should have to–but I am seriously rethinking the impulse to be tuned in and entertained all the time.