"Velcome to the Device Detox Center! My name is Doctor Schuman. Could you hand over any devices you have on you? They will be returned after two weeks"
The kindly doctor looked on as I pulled out my smartphone and gave it one final fond look before handing it over.
"Thank you. Do you have any other devices, perhaps in your luggage? Ach! Ve have already looked there, and found a tablet computer. Vere you perhaps thinking of surfing the web later? You know we cannot permit that"
(Busted!) "I’m sorry, doctor. I must have forgotten it"
"That is what all of our patients say. Come, we will enter the facility now"
Dr. Schuman led me through what looked like a security gate at an airport. A guard at the gate eyed me as I passed through and as I did, the light above the portal blinked green. I was in and device free.
"First you will get to know the other patients some, yah?" the doctor said as he led me into a lounge area. Ten people of various ages were sitting in the room, some of them paging through magazines. I looked for a TV set but there was none. A few people in the room eyed me disinterestedly.
Oh man…… I’m Jones’n for summa that!
Rahul Chakraborty- Unsplash.com
Doctor Schuman addressed the assembled. "This is Samuel! He has come to join you and is the last member of this session's group to arrive. Please welcome him. We will have much to share with each other over the next two weeks but for now I must leave. I will see everyone again in twenty minutes, ya?". Doctor Schuman actually clicked his heels before bowing slightly to us and departing. Old school German professionalism on display.
Around the room, I could see that there was a lot of nervousness. "Hello" I heard a few people mumble, but none reached out to engage me in conversation. Seemed they were awkward around others and lacked social skills.
I was hardly feeling gregarious myself. Had I my phone I could have Googled something about how to deal with this situation and I actually, due to force of habit, reached for my phone in my left shirt pocket before sadly realizing where my phone was, and where I had placed myself. Like the others, I had let my device habit spiral so out of control that I had chosen to admit myself to a facility such as this.
Yeah, it was only for two weeks, and it was gonna be tough, but I knew I had to do it. I didn't have to talk to the others to know what their issues with devices were because basically they were all the same. Content addicts we were, all of us. The only way to cure our malaise was to quit cold turkey and Dr. Schuman was said to be one of the best. His pioneering work was admired throughout the world and here, high up in the Bavarian Alps, in a lodge hidden in a remote valley, accessible only by a precarious, little used mountain road, and kilometers removed from any other habitation, we would be safe from WiFi. Its not like we could have gotten online if we tried but still, even though our devices could only act as security blankets now, even their physical presence had been denied us.
Data flooded through my mind nonetheless, fragments of web pages I'd perused, images I had seen, videos I had watched. Garbage of the mind, clutter, chaff! Could I again reclaim the ability to think on my own, to have a private thought? Dr. Schuman claimed that this was possible but only in two weeks?
Nein! Two weeks was only the introductory period. Addiction reversal was a process of many stages and this was only stage one. Being isolated, secluded, and unable to satisfy our cravings was a test that we must each individually pass before we could hope for placement in one of Dr. Schuman's halfway houses where device access was again possible- but kept limited. For our own good, understand. Unlimited data had been our downfall and the ramifications of backsliding into addictive behavior again meant the dreaded R word- readmittance!
But not for two weeks. No, failing to stay clean and being readmitted meant going cold turkey for a month. Three time violators had device access revoked for a year. Nobody in this room wanted to be subjected to that. How utterly horrible. Draconian, even.
The stakes were perilously high and everybody knew it. Because of this nobody was talking much and countenances were more than a little bit glum. I comforted myself by looking out of the lodge's windows towards the snow-capped mountains in the distance, and the bucolic woodlands and meadows that spread out before them. Nature was out there, something I knew about from watching videos.
A young woman entered the room.
"Good morning!" she cheerily began. "I am Dr. Schuman's assistant, Greta. Before we show you to your quarters we are going to do a round table session with Dr. Schuman to see where everybody is as they begin this process and address any concerns about it you might have. This won't take long. Come with me!"
She led us down a long hallway and into a rather cozy space. No more than twelve of us could fit inside the paneled conference room we came upon, which resembled a large study. The chairs were comfortable and arranged in a circle. A few largish windows enabled many of us to gaze out upon the mountains while those without window views could look upon the hundreds of books that lined the walls.
I was already feeling sharp pangs of desire to get online and from the looks of things, I wasn't alone. Dr. Schuman then entered and gave us an overview of the program. Oh, this was going to be a long two weeks but, as Dr. Schuman repeatedly assured us, the tradeoff was going to be less anxiety and stress. After going around the table and addressing each participant’s concerns, he told us that we had already taken a very big step towards healthy device relationship by consciously choosing to lay our devices down for a while. This meant that we had chosen of our own free will to directly face the two greatest fears of our time- the Fear Of Not Keeping Up and the Fear Of Missing Out. The World would still be there when we got back online, he said. Life wasn't going to end, or change in any dramatic way.
"People lived out of touch with each other for thousands of years!" laughed Dr. Schuman. "And they survived! You have nothing to worry about!"
Instead of reassuring us, his blithe comment brought a wave of anxiety over more than a few participants, myself included. Did we trust Doctor Schuman enough to warrant being subjected to this onerous and demanding trial? Our anxiousness about Keeping Up and Missing Out was causing discomfort aplenty and it had only been a few hours since check in.
The doctor said that the first three days would be the hardest, then after that we’d settle in.
I sure hope he's right about all this!