I didn't understand how badly I was addicted until I was forced to go cold turkey. It happened during a monthlong retreat to Scotland, where I'd been given a chance to work on my new book uninterrupted by the inconveniences of daily life. The administrators fed me, did my laundry, cleaned my room and the bathroom and left me alone. I didn't have to pay bills or walk the dog or water any plants. They even delivered lunch — silently — in a lovely wicker basket right to my door.
It was my dream of a perfect writing environment, except for one thing: There was no internet or cellphone service. I don't mean in my bedroom, or that it was only in the library, or that it was old-fashioned and slow. It simply did not exist. I'd been so excited about the opportunity, I hadn't stopped to think about how the lack of internet would affect me.
I'm not a digital native. I remember life before personal computers and e-mail. I've never thought of myself as someone who spends a lot of time online. But during those first days in Scotland, the lack of Wi-Fi was horrible. I sat in front of my computer, but instead of communing with my muse, I was anxious, distracted, aware of my heart thumping too loudly in my chest. Classic withdrawal symptoms. Worst of all, I felt claustrophobic, trapped in a foreign country without a car or an Uber connection or the ability to Google a bus schedule.
In the past, safe at home with my high-speed Wi-Fi, I have expounded on the dangers of modern technology. I've lectured my kids, students and friends about how it is lowering our intelligence, ruining our memories, altering the social construct. Parents are on their phones at the park or the beach or while pushing the stroller instead of interacting with their children. Dinner party guests pick up their phones, ostensibly to answer some question — and then surreptitiously check Instagram. The dopamine hit from e-mail, Twitter, texting has been scientifically studied and verified.
At my retreat, I discovered how much I missed that high. At home if I wrote a good sentence, I congratulated myself by checking e-mail. Then I needed to see if those shoes I like have gone on sale, and after that if my sister's cat had surgery — of course accompanied by an upbeat little note to her. She's online a lot so I can count on her to write back quickly and then I reply and on and on it goes.
In Scotland I wanted to post pictures of the rolling countryside and the sheep and receive all the "amazing!" and "so cute!" and "lucky you!" affirmations. But I couldn't tell friends back home how beautiful it was, how delicious dinner had been or how much work I'd done that day. I couldn't even tell my spouse I had arrived, my room was cozy, my fellow writers interesting. I couldn't tell him I wanted to come home. Those first few days I didn't do much writing.
I blamed it on a lack of access to information. I do a lot of research for my novels. Some might say I'm obsessive. It's hard for me to let any little unimportant detail go, what kind of buttons they had on double-breasted suits in the 1970s or what day of the week was March 26, 1998. That first day at the retreat, I was desperate to know the name of those little ceramic cups without handles in a Japanese tea set. It wasn't integral to the plot of my book. No one was in Japan or even really drinking tea; still, I felt I couldn't write the next scene without that single, specific word.
Finally I realized I was agitated not because I couldn't do research or communicate with my spouse. It was much deeper than that. I felt left out, missing what my friends were doing, seeing where they were having lunch or taking walks, or knowing what was blooming in their backyards. Did I even exist if I couldn't share my days, show my cyber community where I was and exactly what I was doing? Why was it so important for me to see and be seen?