Oklahoma Joe: A digital detox in Colorado

It sounded perfect.

A vacation in the southern Colorado mountains where temperatures were in the 70s during the day and 50s at night.

We rented a nice place at 9,080-foot elevation for a week in Forbes Park where Nan and I have bought land. My beloved dog Blazer came with us. However, despite the landlord’s best efforts, the home lacked a modern necessity: wi-fi. The mountains also limited cellular coverage.

I had forgotten how dependent we are on our smartphones.

And, as Nan said, “I like to stay connected,” especially to our two daughters, Elena and Elyse, who became irritated that we weren’t as connected as we usually are.

Surveys indicate we spend an average of 5 hours on our mobile devices daily, checking them once every 10 minutes or up to 100 times a day. Four in 10 of us use our smartphones constantly, according to Pew Research, with some of us considered “smartphone dependent.”

For this smartphone-dependent guy, I thought it was time for a vacation from my own constant checking. I had packed four books, and two seemed perfect: “The Year of Living Constitutionally,” an excellent book by A.J. Jacobs who sought to live like our founding fathers did in the late 1700s, and “What It’s Like to be Amish,” a book by Sam S. Stoltzfus, an Amish writer who I had met in Lancaster, Penn. I also brought some book research and other writing materials.

I was upset that I had forgotten printed materials such as “National Geographic,” “Consumer Reports” and The Journal Record and decided to search for newspapers and magazines when we “went into town” in Fort Garland or Alamosa, about a 30-minute to one-hour drive from our rented house. I found a few weekly newspapers and free publications, but few grocery and convenience stores offered any options. One convenience store employee in Fort Garland, Co., pointed to copies of the Thrifty Nickel and Alligator Gazette, but I passed on those.

While I was searching for reading material, Nan was seeking ways to connect. Our landlord allowed us to use her wi-fi, so Nan walked up the long path to her house several times a day to check her emails and make phone calls. She compared it to Oliver Wendall Douglas, Eddie Albert’s character in “Green Acres,” climbing up a telephone pole.

At one point, we stood together on the path looking up into the mountains. We had seen two elk roaming nearby earlier in the day.

“Do you want me to do my best elk call,” I said, before making a sick-cow sound.

“You can’t even look that up,” Nan said before walking away to look something up.

Finally, we settled into our routine when we weren’t going to town, walking Blazer on the lonely mountain roads or staring into the distance to see if we could find any more elk, deer, bears or anything remotely resembling anything moving or not moving. I read my books while Nan worked on a 1,000-piece “Library Vintage Puzzle” that she found in a La Veta store.

I did become irritated at times when I struggled to connect, but I was able to read more, write more and think more without the constant interruptions of my smartphone. I decided to end several notifications on my Apple watch and iPhone.

Jacobs writes it’s the art of “slow thinking,” which includes slowing down news consumption and putting a speed limit on modern life.

As Jacobs found, that type of life is not perfect, but our minds could use more breaks from being connected so much.

(Next week, Oklahoma Joe will explore the benefits and hazards of taking your dog to higher altitudes.)

Joe Hight is director and a member of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, an editor who led a Pulitzer Prize-winning project, the journalism ethics chair at the University of Central Oklahoma, president/owner of Best of Books, author of “Unnecessary Sorrow” and lead writer/editor of “Our Greatest Journalists.”

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