The Pros and Cons of Being Disconnected

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Danielle Faber

Welcome back, readers! After a great holiday, we’re back to the races and working away once again. Some of us took a nice extended holiday break, namely me, and others took a few days off for a lovely staycation in the city, which was rudely interrupted by an ice storm followed by a deep freeze. Either way, we all took a day or two away from our screens to enjoy some quality time with the people we really like, maybe even love. And to drink egg nog with just a dash (okay maybe more than a dash) of rum.

For me, the days away from my screen weren’t as easy and relaxed as I had hoped. Before my trip, I was looking forward to 2 joyous weeks of disconnectedness. No texts, no emails, no phone calls, no Facebook notifications, no Twitter replies…I could go on but I’m sure you get the point. I thought that cutting the vibration out of my life would help me think clearer. Well, big surprise: It didn’t.

My destination was a beautiful oceanside resort with all the comforts of home. All except one: WiFi. Yes, you heard that right, there is a place in this world that doesn’t have WiFi. Well, let me clarify, the place does have WiFi, the WiFi just never worked. For the first few days, this seemed like a reprieve for me. I was content to leave my phone upstairs and go about my day without my trusty tech companion, but that didn’t last long. Soon, I was chasing down signals, receiving the dreaded “Message Send Failure” texts, and FaceTiming whomever I could with one bar of service. ONE BAR! The horror! Emails were flooding in periodically in no logical order and my life, as well as my inbox, was a mess.

You may think that I’m overreacting to the situation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about a couple of weeks in paradise, and my lack of connectedness definitely didn’t ruin my trip, but it did ruin the minutes I spent trying to connect with home. I’m so used to knowing what’s going on with all of the people in my life and keeping my head in the game at work, and a few weeks without catching up definitely makes a difference.

I felt it most when I got back, sat down in my chair at work and felt like I had no idea what was going on. I’ve spent many hours over the past year making sure I’m on top of my game and although it was the holidays and things typically slow down around that time, a lot can happen in a short period. I was reminded of that a mere few hours before I left with the Justine Sacco debacle. Oh, how a couple of hours of disconnectedness changed her life!

Danielle is a Social Media Coordinator at 88 Creative. Follow her on Twitter at @DFabes .