This blog post is a quick summary of the book “The Unplugged Hours” written by Hannah Brencher

Context

Constant connection to devices is a reality for most of us. We are awash with notifications, messages, emails and a host of other interruptions in our life to the extent that we are no different from a lab rat that craves for the interruptions. Yes, we crave for interruptions because almost all of them accompany a dopamine rush that our brain craves for.

In my own life, I have vacillated between totally unplugged for an extended period of time and feverishly addicted to devices. The latter is more a result of life circumstances where I have to keep track of kids school notifications, their music and dance school notifications, scheduling their time table via Whatsapp interactions with various people. A decade ago, in 2014, I wouldn’t have imagined I would inhabit a home that will have so many people. I lived a solitary life for many years and the transition to family life upended my silent life completely. Initially it was spouse and occasional visits from in-laws. Then arrival of two kids meant we needed domestic support with in-laws health deteriorating. This meant living in house with wife, 2 kids, in-laws, helpers and occasional stay of relatives. My addiction to devices became worse after Covid as work from home became a norm. To escape from the noise around me, I took shelter in the devices by tuning off outer noise. Slowly the devices took control of me. In situations where there as silence around me, I was glued to devices. Somewhere along the way, I forgot the ritual of taking break from devices. Thanks to this book, I am reminded that it is important to take a healthy break from all kinds of devices.

Author

The book is a collection of reflections by Hannah Brencher in her efforts to unplug from devices for 1000 hours. What happens along the way of unplugging for 1000 hours ? Author’s anecdotes and life experiences give a glimpse in to some of the answers to that question. Of course there are aids that can help you get on to a similar journey such as Unplugged hours tracker.

In the intro, she summarizes what “unplugging” taught her:

The more I’ve pressed in over the course of the journey, the more I’ve realized it was not just a call to be unplugged. It was a call to be relentlessly present in my life and the lives of others. It was a call to recover lost parts of myself. It was a call to create rather than just consume. It was a call to see the blessing in the mundane bits of daily life. It was a call to step back into connection, wonder, and devotion while breaking free of the constant stream of hurriedness that left me feeling anxious and restless. It was a call to relentlessly check into my life— and keep checking in.

Given the knowledge economy that most of us are part of, we inevitably act as info producers, info analyzers, info consumers and info disseminators. All these roles we get to enact via devices mostly. We no longer use analog mode like we used to in the olden days. Reading from books, journals and media has become digital too. Given that producing, consuming and sharing happens via devices, we are constantly attached to our devices.

This constant attachment to devices gives rise to

  • As information consumers
    • Information overload where we feel we are forever playing catch up with the world around us
    • Unending barrage of information on whatever aspect that appeals to you or is made appealing to you
    • Sort of anxiety that swells within us when we are overwhelmed by info
    • Gamification of info sites makes us go back to some of these sources and we do endless scrolling and clicking, in turn numbing our senses to turn the information in to useful knowledge
  • As information sharers
    • Constant sharing of info leads to a sharing a filtered version of ours to the outside world. This filtered version over a period of time accumulates in to a version that seems increasingly disconnected to reality for the info sharer. Instead of facing the reality, some of us find the false pretense act as an escape route that might give instant gratification but in the long run has painful consequences
  • As information producers
    • I think this is the biggest change that Internet and mobile devices have created; info production has become democratized. Info production via videos, images, audio and text have become easily doable. This has given rise to a feeling that most of our lives moments or thoughts or feelings are meant to be shared online with others, irrespective of their actual importance in our lives.

This hyper dependence on devices has creates a list of problems, some of which are:

  • Less connected to our real selves
  • More anxious
  • Hyper connected
  • Notification driven
  • Always on
  • Less time for stillness and silence
  • Less time to connect with others
  • Escape in to a world where we don’t have to connect with reality
  • Need to do things in a hurry
  • Overwhelmed by information
  • Comparison with others who paint a filtered view of their lives
  • Less time to sit peacefully and process information
  • Less time for long hours of deliberative action
  • Tendency to project filtered views
  • Spectating lives
  • Multi-tasking instead of Mono-tasking
  • Forget that rest is important to regain stability
  • Run to devices when we encounter stress or discomfort

So, what does this book to offer you ? Well unplugging from the devices does seem to be a useful practice to get rid of a few problems mentioned above. So, do you have to really read a 200 page book to understand the importance ? Not really. If you can consciously unplug from devices and carry on doing the activities that matter to you, then you don’t need this book. But if you are curious to read about some of the problems mentioned above, and are curious to how these relate it to author’s journey in to unplugged state, the book might be an interesting read.

The book is divided in to four parts that trace various phases of the author’s journey in to “unplugged” life. Here are some points that I found noteworthy:

  • Tiny forks in life matter. Enough of tiny forks make us who we are
  • Stay in the discomfort zone long enough to see hard-earned growth
  • Nomophobia is the fear of being disconnected from one’s phone
  • When you are checking in others, you are checking out yourself. Make time to check in to yourself
  • Devices give you quick dopamine. For the same level of dopamine, you might have to go for a long walk, exercise, work through
  • Endless scrolling of others lives somehow makes us feel that we are not enough
  • Seeing the infinite in every finite task
  • Are you living less and performing more ?
  • Torn being in the moment and Sharing/Capturing the moment on a device
  • We become so busy spectating, watching from sidelines and convincing ourselves we need what other have have that we never begin
  • Dusty barbells in the basement - Analogy of using what you already have
  • Think of how much you are going to learn each day
  • Don’t be a spectator, participate and enrich your inner life
  • Staying a spectator is how you miss the essence of your life
  • Social media/Scrolling feeds comparison
  • Notification fatigue - The more notifications that roll in, the more desensitized we are to the urgent ones
  • When we put thoughts down on a paper, they become malleable. We can start and address from there - Importance of journaling
  • Being still before a task gives a chance for your mind to meet the body
  • Blaise Pascal said in 1654 : All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quite in a room alone
  • Rest - Don’t resist the rest
  • Presence and Deep appreciation of self is the essence of Sabbath
  • Rest isn’t weakness. It is the secret to one’s strength
  • Watch and Pray
  • Good things are waiting for you up ahead - even if you can’t envision them right now. There are sunsets you’ve yet to see. Good coffee to drink. Art to make. Words to be written down in journals and margins and cards
  • Vegetables represent slow but solid growth. They represent patience in the wait for harvest, and joy when it comes.

Instead of asking, “Why bother with the inner life?,” Gordon MacDonald poses a question with expansive potential to impact the shape of our lives: “Are we going to order our inner worlds, our hearts, so that they will radiate influence into the outer world? Or will we neglect our private worlds and, thus, permit the outer influences to shape us? This is a choice we must make every day of our lives.”

I think “don’t rush” could apply to many parts of our lives: Don’t rush the season. Don’t rush the learning curve. Don’t rush the waiting. Don’t rush the healing. Don’t rush. We often want to rush because we’ve become used to the efficiency of our digital age, but there are many things in life that cannot be rushed if we want them to turn out right. Many aspects of transformation require being willing to simply take things one slow step at a time.

I can’t say digital technology is entirely responsible for stealing away our creativity and imagination. That wouldn’t be fair. But I’ve also seen how we can lose minutes and hours by clicking and swiping. I’ve seen how consuming video after video and post after post can dull the parts of us that ever wanted to create things in the first place. Creativity is a muscle. Muscles must be trained and flexed and built and repaired. The muscle of creativity doesn’t grow from watching what others have created. It grows from practice. It grows from letting our minds wander off. It grows from taking time to breathe and think and take in the world around us. It grows from experimentation and the willingness to dig deep enough to be original when it would be easier, in today’s copy-and-paste culture, to imitate what everyone else is doing.

We consume at all hours of the day— early in the morning when we first wake up and late into the evening, even though scientists warn us about all that blue light. We consume without knowing why we’re consuming. We consume without realizing the consequences— that everything we take in, every image and video, impacts our souls. Each fifteen-second clip or three-minute video is another thing that can alter how we think, feel, and interact with the world around us. When our attention leaves our present moment, we step out of the natural, creative flow of life and become less inspired. We lose touch with the parts of us that feel more alive when they’re working with raw materials: wood, herbs, numbers, sentences, dough, sweat, or musical chords. We forget we were made to make something out of nothing.

I realize “proceed quietly” is not exactly the mantra of our world. The world tells us to make a ruckus. Make noise. Be the loudest. Let people in on what you’re doing. Share, share, share. Sharing is a vital part of life, but there’s a difference between sharing from an overflow of emotion or as an afterthought and sharing because you believe your value and worth hinge on it. Many of us harbor an “I share, therefore I am” mentality, as sociologist Sherry Turkle would call it, that we need to shatter if we ever want to live fully present lives.

Peace has a pace. A steady, resilient pace. And sometimes you have to slow down to recover your peace and learn how to move with it. Its pace may make no sense. You might be tempted to move fast because you know you can. But good work happens in the slow breaths, in the unrushed rhythms, in the spirit that swims against the streams of hurry. To attain that peaceful pace, we must be willing to lay down the hurried pace we set for ourselves in the first place— the speed we thought we needed to maintain to keep up with everyone else.

I think “don’t rush” could apply to many parts of our lives: Don’t rush the season. Don’t rush the learning curve. Don’t rush the waiting. Don’t rush the healing. Don’t rush. We often want to rush because we’ve become used to the efficiency of our digital age, but there are many things in life that cannot be rushed if we want them to turn out right. Many aspects of transformation require being willing to simply take things one slow step at a time.

Before I began this practice of stillness, everything felt urgent. I felt I had to use every spare moment to fling myself into the next task. Time was never on my side, and any chance to meet with God had to be filled with divine and booming purpose— with some sort of clear application for myself or someone else. But as time goes on and stillness fills the cracks in my day more and more, I’m releasing the grip I once had on the transactional aspects of my faith. A gentle intimacy is emerging in their place. The best way I can describe it to you is this: It feels like driving home in the dark of night, pulling down your street and into the driveway, and seeing that someone left the light on for you. You’re home. You’re safe and someone wants you to be here.

Takeaway

The title of the book gives away the takeaway in bold words. However if you want to read about author’s journey in to “unplugged” state and get inspired to do something similar, the book might be good read.