A few brief observations.
I got on email once, to look up flight information it turned out I'd already saved. So essentially I went 26 days without checking email, and it was awesome and actually really easy to do. I missed nothing of much importance. The implication for future behavior is substantial.
I checked Facebook exactly zero times, and that was easier still, and I'm sure I missed nothing of any importance except for the messages people sent me on my birthday, the email notifications of which I glanced at in my inbox and which made me smile and which I will answer, each and every one, because getting a "Happy birthday!" from someone, even if it's someone I never otherwise hear from, always makes me smile. (Gratitude is well worth expressing.)
Not to suggest that I attained some kind of disciplined monk-like purity with respect to the electronic devices that fill my life and slurp up my time. The laptop had to come so I could do my writing, and there's no problem with that, but I also spent a surprising amount of time playing Game, which yes that addiction has returned, and I even sat outside on a lovely day in Gig Harbor and played a little Hearthstone. Are these the kind of things one does when one is out exploring the world, away from one's usual patterns, breathing deeply, spending every minute of this so-far glorious summer outdoors, attempting to live in the moment? Apparently it is.
And the smartphone, the goddamn smartphone, how tied to that asshole I was. Look, it's a profoundly useful device, I can't deny it. The number of times I used it to get around an unfamiliar city, or to find the best route (not always obvious) between Here and There--super useful. (Yes I had a road atlas, but it doesn't fit comfortably in my pocket.) And it was nice to be able to send and receive text messages, and it's good to have a camera in my pocket all the time, and being able to ask about the best local restaurants and stuff was regularly useful. So I'm glad I had it.
But I don't like being such a slave to it. It's just...there, constantly demanding attention. "Hey, look over here!" it would say. "Maybe someone texted you!"
"But I'm driving," I'd tell it.
"I don't care!" it would say.
And because it was so useful and because modern smartphone battery life is the mayfly of the electronics world, I had to be careful to remember to charge the thing, which isn't really what I want to be thinking about when I'm watching darkness fall at Delicate Arch or trying to comprehend the height of Mt. Rainier or imagining the great glacier that clearly once filled (not that long ago, geologically speaking) Turnagain Arm. But if I wasn't careful about putting it in airplane mode in these remote places, it would slurp down charge searching for signal, and if there's one thing more annoying than carrying a useful smartphone, it's carrying a useless dead one.
At the very least, next time I will take a watch. I needed to check the time regularly enough, and having the phone as my only timepiece made it puff out its little chest in self-importance. "Just try leaving me in the glove compartment," it would say. But it got a little too cocky. Next time? "Twenty-five dollars at Target," I'll tell it, pointing to my wrist.