Step Away From the Phone!
Erin Baiano for The New York Times
In “phone stack,” first one to sneak a look pays. Michael Carl, second from left.
By CAROLINE TELL
Published: September 20, 2013
Whenever Michael Carl, the fashion market director at Vanity Fair, goes out to dinner with friends, he plays something called the “phone stack” game: Everyone places their phones in the middle of the table; whoever looks at their device before the check arrives picks up the tab.
Brandon Holley, the former editor of Lucky magazine, had trouble ditching her iPhone when she got home from work. So about six months ago, she began tossing her phone into a vintage milk tin the moment she walked in. It remains there until after dinner.
And Marc Jacobs, the fashion designer, didn’t want to sleep next to a beeping gizmo. So he banned digital devices from his bedroom, a house rule he shared with audiences during a recent screening of “Disconnect,” a film that dramatizes how technology has alienated people from one other.
As smartphones continue to burrow their way into our lives, and wearable devices like Google Glass threaten to erode our personal space even further, overtaxed users are carving out their own device-free zones with ad hoc tricks and life hacks.
Whether it’s a physical barrier (no iPads at the dinner table) or a conceptual one (turn off devices by 11 p.m.), users say these weaning techniques are improving their relationships — and their sanity.
“Disconnecting is a luxury that we all need,” said Lesley M. M. Blume, a New York writer who keeps her phone away from the dinner table at home. “The expectation that we must always be available to employers, colleagues, family: it creates a real obstacle in trying to set aside private time. But that private time is more important than ever.”
Much of the digital detoxing is centered on the home, where urgent e-mails from co-workers, texts from friends, Instagram photos from acquaintances and YOLO updates on Facebook conspire to upend domestic tranquillity.
A popular tactic is to designate a kind of cellphone lockbox, like the milk tin that Ms. Holley uses. “If my phone is buzzing or lighting up, it’s still a distraction, so it goes in the box,” said Ms. Holley, who lives in a row house in Red Hook, Brooklyn, with her son, Smith, and husband, John. “It’s not something I want my kid to see.”
An empty fishbowl, which sits on a dining room credenza, serves a similar function for Jaime David, a publicist at the Starworks Group in New York, except there are consequences for violators. “If someone picks up the phone between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. without a really good reason, they are tasked with getting our son to bed,” said Ms. David, who lives in Maplewood, N.J., with her husband, Jon, and two sons, Milo, 4, and Jack, 10 months.
Others assign a digital curfew. “No screens after 11 p.m.,” said Ari Melber, a host of MSNBC’s “The Cycle,” who lives in a walk-up apartment in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, with his fiancée, Drew Grant, a pop culture reporter at The New York Observer. The rule was instituted in January, after a vacation in Honduras where the couple found themselves without Internet access and ultimately happy about it.
“We found the evenings were more relaxing, and we were sleeping better,” Mr. Melber said.
Sleep is a big factor, which is why some, like Mr. Jacobs, draw the gadget-free line at the bedroom. “I don’t want to sleep next to something that is a charged ball of information with photos and e-mails,” said Peter Som, the fashion designer, who keeps his phone plugged in in the living room overnight. “It definitely is a head-clearer and delineates daytime and sleep time.”
Households with young children are especially mindful about being overconnected, with parents sensitive to how children may imitate bad habits.
Rebecca Minkoff, a fashion designer, makes a point of turning off the ringers and leaving her two phones on the opposite end of her Dumbo apartment when she plays with her 2-year-old son, Luca. “It isn’t easy, but I do my best to make the few hours I have with my son cellphone-free until he goes to sleep,” Ms. Minkoff said.
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