DIGITAL DETOX 2021 Is It Time to Put 6 Feet Between You and Your Personal Tech?

Online socializing, remote learning, and working from home have changed our minds, bodies, and behaviors—for better and otherwise. It’s time to take stock of our relationship to personal technology and the growing need to distance ourselves.

- JILL DUFFY

Imagine a global pandemic before video calls, messaging apps, collaboration software, cloud storage, and remote access to servers. Or without online shopping, telemedicine, social media, and video streaming. Undoubtedly, technology has made the COVID-19 pandemic much easier to endure than if it had happened 30 years earlier. Even just one month into the pandemic, in April 2020, more than half of US adults said the internet had been essential to them, according to a Pew Research Center survey. And with the rise of remote work and remote learning, people have spent even more time online. By the end of 2020, a report from OpenVault found that monthly data consumption was up 40% on average, compared with 2019. Now, more than a year since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, vaccinations are helping us shift into a less distanced existence. It’s time to take stock of our relationship to personal technology. How has it changed our minds, bodies, and behaviors? And what’s the best way to move forward?

HOW MUCH MORE ONLINE ARE WE, EXACTLY?

Remote work and learning haven’t been equally accessible to everyone. But where they’ve been available, they’ve helped people keep their jobs and further their education. As thankful as we are, though, the transition has been bumpy. Teachers and students have had to learn to use unfamiliar software and hardware on the fly, which has sometimes led to longer and more frustrating online experiences. Parents and caretakers became impromptu IT support for school-age kids.