Tildes Screenless Day Discussion Thread - July 2021
What is a "Screenless Day"?
Tildes "Screenless Day" is a simple event aimed at encouraging people to take a temporary step away from toxic or consuming aspects of technology and spend their time and energies elsewhere.
When is it?
It takes place over the weekend starting on the first Friday of each month. Participants will choose that Friday, Saturday, or Sunday to take as their screenless day -- whichever works best for their schedule.
Some people might not be able to participate in that window, and that's fine too. They can choose to shift their day earlier or later as needed. It is also completely fine (and encouraged!) to take personal screenless days separate from the event if you like. This thread will be posted the first weekend of each month, but it is open for comments the entire month.
Does it have to be truly "screenless"?
"Screenless" is an ideal, not a mandate. The spirit of the day is to deliberately step away from toxic or consuming aspects of technology, and what that means is different for each person. Thus, it is up to each participant to determine what "screenless" means to them. Some might only choose to not use social media for a day; some might choose to eliminate all "screens" but still use their ereader; some may maintain some screen use but only for necessity (e.g. work; classes; GPS; etc.). Some might get rid of screens entirely, or go fully "unplugged" for the day.
How do I participate?
You do not have to do anything formal at all to participate -- simply take your screenless day in whatever way is best for you!
If you’d like to, use this thread to share plans for your upcoming screenless day or summaries/reflections about it once it’s over.
Can I chat in this thread if I'm not participating?
Yes! The more, the merrier! Discussion from anyone, participant or non-participant alike, is welcome. Though, do understand that it might take a bit longer than normal for some people to respond. :)
Funny how I inadvertently had a screenless day when I was out in San Francisco with friends and family, hiking, biking, and running to celebrate a special occasion. I didn't really feel any urge to check my phone...? Which is odd because my family often comments on how quick I am to pull out my phone to ward off boredom.
So that's a good takeaway for me -- great weather lowers the friction to get outside and be active which in turn reduces or even completely eliminates my screentime.
Now, midwest weather on the other hand...>:(
One thing I really like about this communal screenless day is it's an opportunity to look back and remind myself about previous screenless days - what my concerns were then, what things I felt FOMO about when going screenless, and so on.
April - I was preparing to move apartments, and got derailed because someone had broken into my motorcycle.
May - I had just moved, and had a pretty chill day of unpacking.
June - this was wonderful, I had a week-long silent meditation retreat (and a wrote a whole thread about it, if you're curious).
This month - I've been watching the UEFA football championship, and absent screenless day I'd probably spend the weekend watching football games on one monitor while playing Factorio on the other.
I feel some temptation to give myself a "watching football doesn't count as a screen" excuse...but the reality is that I rarely just watch football, usually I have that going on one monitor while I do other things on another monitor. And I see no reason to give myself that slippery-slope temptation.
July 4th is a US holiday but it falls on a Sunday this year, so my work gives us Monday off. I thought about taking Saturday as my screenless day, because that would give me Sunday & Monday as a "normal" feeling weekend...but why do I consider a weekend full of screens to be a "normal" weekend?
I think instead I'm going to take Sunday as my screenless day, and intentionally break my weekend up so that I don't have two consecutive screen-ful days.
My goals for Sunday:
Read (as usual, I'm permitting myself a Kindle and not counting it as a screen). I recently started the Night's Dawn trilogy - I've read Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga before but not any of his other books.
Go for a bike ride - I wanted to do this last weekend but it was too goddamn hot. This weekend should be much nicer. There's a fairly narrow window here in Seattle of making sure it's a) not too hot and b) not covered in wildfire smoke, and I want to take maximum advantage of it.
I’ll be camping this weekend, and I rarely look at my phone when I do that. I plan to take my camera, which will cut down on any reason to have my phone out.
Anyone here do a true screenless day? No phone, no tv, no e-reader? How did it go?
I did for my first one. You can see my thoughts about it here.
I think it was a net positive, and I’d like to try for another one sometime soon, since I keep convincing myself that I can do a “soft” screenless day where I only use my phone for certain tasks, which of course is a total cop-out and I never actually commit.