How to Disconnect

‘I don’t know that I ever have’.

‘Before phones were invented’.

‘Before I was born’,

These were the responses I had received from an innocent question.

I had conducted such a simple experiment on myself, easy for most to do with some planning and support, yet no one around me had done it. Or even thought about it.

The question I had asked my friends, which includes my recent experiment, was ‘when was the last time you turned off your phone for 48 hours?’.

Technology sits in every corner of my life, and taking a step back from it can feel unnatural.

As someone deeply entrenched in the tech industry, as an entrepreneur, leader, investor and enthusiast, technology is a key part of my identity.

The idea of disconnecting from technology can feel like disconnecting from myself. However it is completely the opposite.

This past weekend, I turned off my phone for 48 hours continuously.

I took myself on vacation, alone, to Comporta, an upscale beach town a few hours south of Lisbon along the coastline of Portugal.

On my drive down, I called my family and a few friends, and each conversation ended with ‘oh, and I won’t be reachable for the next two days’. It is not the first time by any means I’ve done this, so my disclaimer was not met with any resistance. Those closest to me know this is not uncommon. And now the rest of the my world knows.

As clearly most of you have never done this, let me describe the scene.

It felt like stepping into a 50s movie, one where the familiar glow of the screen was absent and I was fully present.

This simple act of disconnecting created a space for observation of a different variety, allowing me to engage with the world and with myself in a way I normally don’t.

The first realization was the sheer weight of dependency I had developed on my phone. Like a reflex, I found myself reaching for a device that was not on me. This phantom checking was a stark reminder of how many micro moments involve my phone, during my morning or evening routine alone.

As the hours passed, a subtle but noticeable change began to take place. Time, which always seems to slip away in my regular life, started to expand. Minutes felt longer.

This warping of time was not just a perception but a reflection of how much the pace of my living is influenced by my phone. And of course, it is not the physical object of a phone itself that is setting the pace. It is the information, the people, the inbox, the to-do list, and more that the phone puts in my hand and in my face, frequently throughout each waking moment.

I’m surprised we haven’t yet invented a way to use our phones while we sleep. It’s probably coming.

The irony of my situation was not lost on me.

Here I was, an advocate of technology, and recently of AI, finding profound peace in its full absence.

I began to notice the duality of technology - its ability to connect us across continents, yet its equal power to distance us from the very people next to us.

One of the most enriching aspects of this digital detox was the spontaneous conversations I had with other hotel guests and staff where I was staying. These interactions, free from the distraction of a phone, were authentic and engaging. I observed myself more curious about the guests. I began to practice my Portuguese with the staff, taking the extra few minutes to ask them questions about themselves beyond the transactional interaction of what I needed at that moment.

They reminded me of the fundamental human need for connection, something that ironically gets lost in digital realms.

Each morning, as I sat down for breakfast, a sense of sadness washed over me.

My eyes met scenes of couples, families, young and old, all absorbed in their devices. In a setting that was meant to be a retreat in nature, a break from the everyday hustle, it seemed like a lost opportunity. Absolutely everyone else at the hotel, from the five year old boy to the eighty year old grandparent, was on their phone.

Here were people who had worked hard to earn a moment of peace, only to spend it in the company of their digital screens.

This experience has led me to a resolution - to incorporate mini disconnection breaks into my regular routine.

The constant influx of information in my life often puts me in a state of reactive triage, always processing, never quite reflecting. This break from technology allowed me to step out of this cycle, offering a chance for deeper connection.

The mental relaxation that followed was refreshing. The cognitive load of processing emails, texts, and messages was far more taxing than I had realized. By stepping away, even for a short while, I gave my mind the much-needed break it needed. This pause in the constant mental sorting and responding left me with a sense of order and calm inside.

This experiment of turning off my phone for 48 hours reminded me of the value of taking a pause. And it really is simple to do.

It showed me that in the quiet moments, away from the relentless ping of messages, lies the opportunity for genuine connection with the world around me and inside of me.

I hope that when I ask friends in the future the same question, their answers are ‘just last week’.

And that is how I learned to disconnect.