Your Brain Off Computers

About a year ago, The New York Times did an interesting article on the effects of unplugging on the brain.  Not surprisingly, the researchers found that too much tech is bad.  Attention suffers (no shocker there; just watch kids doing homework, texting, watching videos and listening to music–at the same time–and try telling them that there really is no such thing as multitasking: there’s only many things done in a half-assed way).  So do creativity, memory, and mood.   Read the article and watch the video. Well worth the time.

The reason I bring all this up is I had a chance to test this, up close and personal.  This past week, I visited Glacier National Park and effectively went unplugged and offline for about four days.  I was pretty sure I’d told people I’d be unreachable, but I forgot to set up a vacation message.  I didn’t tell anyone where I was going.  Now, I’m old enough to have lived in an era without cell phones; there were “mobile” phones, but they were clunky and expensive.  Further, they defeated the purpose of going on a hike; I didn’t want to be found.

This time around, I felt . . . a little ambivalent.  For one thing, I’d brought work: the final pass for ASHES and another book I wanted to finish up (and which I finally did and shot out of here yesterday).  Things have been so hectic regarding ASHES–in a good way, mind you–that I think part of me just didn’t want to be out of touch.  Who knew what might happen?  This is even knowing that my editor was out of the country!  Still, on my way into Glacier, I just had to stop for one last internet fix at this little café.  It was closed, but I hung out in the parking lot, found a signal and then logged on long enough to send off my last pass even though I knew my editor wouldn’t be around to read my comments until that Friday.  Why?  I didn’t want the thing hanging over me; this trip was to unwind, unplug, do a little research, do a little hiking, turn off my brain.  Even though I’d brought that book to work on, I figured it would be a miracle if I turned on the computer or even remembered the date.

Wrong-o.

What surprised me about this trip?  How uncomfortable I was for the first 48 hours or so.  Mind you, I’ve hiked my entire adult life.  Hiking is, for me, the ultimate in getting away from it all.  When I’m on a trail–and truly disconnected from my life–I lose track of the date and, sometimes, time.  I almost never look at my watch.  I chatter for the first day or so and then I just go mum.  Nothing to say.  Plenty to look at.  Mosquitoes to swat.  A couple times, I brought an iPod along so I could listen to books on the trail, but I ditched that, too, years back.  For one thing, you can’t hear the animals–and some of them are big and, well, surprises aren’t necessarily fun for them or you.  

This time was weird.  I was anxious, antsy, angst-ful.  The lodge where we stayed had no televisions or radios much less internet, but one night I saw this woman with a cell–and she clearly had the right carrier because she was yakking up a storm–and I felt like . . . gimme that.  Like damn, wish I had her carrier . . . 

I did notice, though, that my creative juices started flowing again.  I’d been having trouble wrapping up this latest book because I was still trying to see what I’d do for the sequel.  That all came clear one afternoon on a backcountry trail. By then, I’d sung Mozart’s REQUIEM all the way through–twice, and doing all the parts because we were in this wash where the grizzlies liked to roam and we knew they were out there, had seen a mom and two cubs just the other day.  But grizzlies shy away from people talking or singing. (News flash: bear bells?  Useless.  Cubs are super-interested in the noise and so they’ll head right for you.  Since mom-grizzly is sure to be right behind, you might as well ring the dinner bell.)  The hubby and I were silent, not talking much after having hiked 15+ miles.  We were still a mile or so from the trailhead when the answer just popped into my head.  A nice little light-bulb moment.  I was so excited by the time we got back to the lodge that I kept reviewing it in my mind, turning the idea over this way and that, nursing it like a glass of very good red wine.  Letting it breathe.  By morning, it still had a great bouquet, and so I pulled out the computer and wrote it down. Worked on it during the car ride out of the park and all the way to Missoula, and then put the finishing touches on it yesterday.

So getting away was definitely good.  Going unplugged was better.  What was fascinating was to find that when I did go online–just as soon as I got a signal–I got a bazillion messages and texts: from the daughters; from folks who’d been trying to find me.  Only two messages were REALLY important, and one was so SUPER IMPORTANT, I just called instead of playing email-tag.

In the end, only two emails out of more than two hundred (and, wuh, four days offline) demanded my attention.  That’s one-percent.  Now, that was a really important one-percent, and–as it turned out–it was a damned good thing I’m pretty compulsive when it comes to things like work and deadlines.

Still, I’m kind of conflicted here because the rest could wait.  Some–a lot–was outright garbage of the kind we all get.  Would things have worked out for that super-important one-percent if I hadn’t happened to be in a position to check my email last Friday?  I bet they would have; some people might have been peeved but not bled out or anything fatal.

So I’m left with the feeling that we manufacture urgency, and being constantly and always available only fosters the illusion.  Worse, I now completely understand what the scientists were talking about when they described the kind of anxiety that grips people when they’re suddenly unplugged–and that troubles me.  From personal experience, I know that my brain works better when I unplug and get away.  I’m uneasy when I’m out of the natural world for too long–and now, I’m uneasy when I leave the manufactured one behind, too.

The way out of the box?  It’s pretty simple, actually.  Importance is relative; when people say they don’t have enough time, they’re really saying that some things are worth their attention and others aren’t or are low priority.  Getting out into the sun, going for a hike, unplugging . . . those should all be priorities for me just as writing is, for me, number one.  (Yes, I know: family should be number one and they are . . . most of the time.  If we’re talking arterial blood, or active flames.  When I’m deep in a book, I lose perspective. The book has me by the throat and everything else is secondary.) 

More to the point, unplugging is good for my writing.  If I hadn’t hit the trails, I’m sure I would’ve bumbled to my ah-ha moment eventually–but perhaps not as quickly.  I’m absolutely positive that getting there wouldn’t have been as much fun as doing the same while hoping that grizzlies have no taste for Mozart.