A digital detox in the Wheatbelt is just what the doctor ordered, in an era of rising smart phone addiction

I’ve long thought a digital detox is a great idea — for other people. All those other people really should put their devices down and learn to switch off. Me? I had no plans of ever doing it. As a regular, non-addicted tech user, I didn’t see the benefit of disconnecting from the world. But a digital detox is exactly what I got during a few days visiting Dryandra in the Wheatbelt, where internet reception is about as rare as a local bilby sighting. If the wind blows just right on a moonlit night, you might get enough of a signal to bounce a single email to your cell. On the first day, our party of 12 found ourselves regularly checking our phones out of habit. It was confronting how many times I reached for the phone on that first day, only to be disappointed that it could not tell me the monthly rainfall, the capital of Chile, or how many Kit Kat flavours there are in Japan, among other random facts that seemed really important at the time. But in truth, while the adjustment was steep, it was also relatively swift. We were soon consumed by playing tennis on dirt courts, bushwalking and visiting kangaroos. I launched my daughter off the playground’s flying fox for two hours without the distraction of whatever emotional whack that would have come with checking the news. Disconnecting from the internet had another unexpected benefit — I discovered that it is actually possible to go on holiday without taking 50,000 photos. Some snaps were taken, but for the most part, the phone camera got a rest, too. I found myself living squarely in each moment and I felt lighter for it. There is a lot of research about how techno-stress affects people. The constant ping of notifications adds to the never-ending list of things to do, which means the mental load never eases. Research suggests Australians spend more than 46 hours a week on their screens and check their smartphones 85 times a day. Some people have a fear of being away from their phones, known as nomophobia (no-mobile-phone-phobia). A smartphone addiction counselling service in Inglewood even claims on its website that the problem is comparable to drug addiction. The complex role of tech in our lives came to a head on my trip when an elderly woman staying at Dryandra Village went missing in the bush for about seven hours. She got lost after climbing a hill in the hope of finding a signal. On one hand, she would not have got lost had it not been so important to her to make a digital connection. On the other, her phone could have been used to locate her, had there been battery power. It goes to show that there is no point in demonising mobile phones. They are useful, life-changing, and potentially life-saving. However, we each have an individual responsibility to determine how much we use or abuse them.