How unplugged should vacation be?

It was only slightly coincidental that I was flying home from a vacation in Colorado when I read this article from Monday’s New York Times about scientists spending time “unplugged” while debating about whether an actual change in mental facilities occurs when we remove ourselves from the world of connectivity. I say “slightly” because you don’t have to be a professional journalist to recognize there’s a reason this story ran when it did: many Americans, not just me and the scientists in the story, take vacation this month, so the question about the value of separating from technology while on vacation is particularly timely.

Nonetheless, I’d already been thinking about the issue of how far to remove myself from connectivity – email, social media, cell phone calls – throughout the vacation, so it was interesting to be flying home as I read this story, in which some scientists expressed their belief that it makes a huge difference in our powers of focus and mental acuity when we disconnect in this way and other scientists said the difference was incidental.

I’m different from a lot of the people I often read about in regards to this topic in a very simple way: at least by telecommunication standards, I’m not that popular. I don’t receive hundreds of emails a day. My cell phone seldom rings more than once or twice in any twenty-four hour period, and even when it rang during our Colorado vacation, the caller was usually a local friend trying to find out what time I wanted to meet for coffee rather than anyone related to my work. I might like to be one of those typical professionals who acts vexed over the onslaught of calls and messages that are part of the daily fabric, but that’s not really my situation.

Nonetheless, I do appreciate the value of stepping away from the constant contact we have come to expect in everyday life. While in Colorado, I reminded myself that checking email once or twice a day was enough; I didn’t need to distract myself with cyber-discussions about what time the Spaghetti Supper Committee should meet in September. The Twitter feed is always tempting, but I reminded myself that focusing on our vacation plans mattered more while we were away from home than keeping up with constant news updates or pithy observations about the challenges of the writing life. Same with Facebook: I was in Colorado to spend time with my husband and children, and I knew I needed to detach myself from the stream of stories, anecdotes and observations of my friends back home and my high school contacts.

But I wasn’t so sure about the daily newspaper. Should I be keeping up with the Boston Globe online, I wondered? And if so, was it enough to read breaking news, or should I browse through features and editorials as well? Was it okay to say that since I was away from home I could skip the obituaries, or did I dare not take the risk that information I should know would appear in that section during the week?

Phone calls were less of an issue. As I said, my cell phone doesn’t ring that often, and my Globe editors already knew I was on vacation. The only person I really wanted to hear from (given that my parents and sisters aren’t big cell phone users either) was my literary agent with news of a publishing deal, but I hardly expected that call to come through during my eight days in Colorado, and my instincts were right: it didn’t.

Vacation or not, finding ways to routinely detach ourselves from the steady stream of conversation and information that has come to define this era is always a good idea. Earlier this year I heard several interviews with Judith Shulevitz about her new book on keeping the Sabbath, and that inspired me to try to go email-free on Sundays. Though I don’t always stick to it, I try to check email only first thing in the morning and after dinner on Sundays, and stay away from the keyboard the rest of the day.

Moreover, keeping myself off line for hours at a time during our vacation cemented my resolve not to start using a smartphone. I’d been on the fence for a while about whether I wanted that level of mobile communication. Right now I have to be at my computer to check my email, and had been vacillating about whether I’d like the kind of phone that would enable me to carry email access around with me.

Now, I’ve convinced myself that this is not something I want. I don’t like the idea of constantly checking email. It’s not just the issue of distraction: I like surprises. I’m resigned to the fact that opening our “real” post office box is no longer very interesting since hardly anything exciting or unexpected comes by snail-mail, but checking my email after several hours away from my computer can still be a small thrill. With ten or more new messages, who knows what treasures lurk? A chatty note from my college roommate? A compliment on my blog? Word from my agent about finding a publisher? (Nope, not yet.)

I agree with the scientists in the New York Times article who believe concentration is improved when we walk away from our mobile communications. I just have trouble doing it for more than a few hours at a time. But I admit that there was a sense of liberation last week as I hit the hiking trail and discovered I had no signal, or closed my cell phone in a locker before following my kids down the hall to the public pool. Sometimes it’s good to just walk away and concentrate on the life that’s unfolding right in front of you instead of in your various virtual realms. And it’s even more helpful to reconnect afterwards and acknowledge that most likely, you really haven’t missed a thing.