Ditch the Screen, Embrace the Green, Part II: Taking Action!

When you grow up in a modern civilization, you become “conditioned” to believe that the way you live is the way everyone lives, or that’s just how things are done.  You are made to assume that’s just how it is. How everyone lives, how everyone behaves, and it is what is just natural. I believe that that’s the case with our modern technologies.  We have become so enmeshed in them that they are literally consuming our lives.  The problem is, if it were only our lives being consumed, that would be one thing.  But they are also consuming the planet.  And none of this consumption is good for us, nor will it help us bring about a better tomorrow.  In today’s post, we’ll conclude my two-part series “Ditch the Screen and Embrace the Green” by exploring some approaches to reducing and eliminating screens, and how to shift our practices to generative uses of screens that benefit our lives, rather than ones that control us.

I even made some artwork for this post with my new motto that you can share!

Review: Five Arguments Against the Elimination of Screens

Last week, I offered the first post in this two-part series “Ditch the Screen, Embrace the Green” by taking Jerry Mander’s 1970’s classic Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television and applying it to modern mobile and computer technology to demonstrate some ways that screens today are pretty awful:

• Argument 0: Technology is not neutral, it predetermines how we use it, who uses it, when it is used, and the effects it has on everyday life.  This means screens are used to control you, to adapt your behavior, and to limit your freedom, all for the benefit of those who create, control, and disseminate these technologies.
• Argument 1: Screens mediate your experience. Screens fundamentally alter and shape the experience that you have with the world.
• Argument 2: Screens colonize your experience. You are the commodity–your time, your attention, and your life energy.  It chooses what you see, when you see, how you see it–it determines your reality. Screens create their own reality.
• Argument 3: Screens have detrimental effects on human beings. The numerous and documented effects include shifting our brain chemistry, making us crazy, addicting us to stupid shit, changing our behavior, limiting our attention span, damaging our sleep, and much more.
• Argument 4: Screens are inherently biased and that bias affects humans (and I’d argue all life) adversely. Screens make us pay attention to things that don’t matter at the great expense of things that really do matter.

Of course, as I also shared last week, it has become harder and harder to get away from these ubiquitous technologies–they are now required to get into venues, to pay for things, to get into your work account, or to board public transportation.  Gee, it seems almost like they are designed to be inescapable.  Of course, they are–because they are designed that way. They are deskilling devices of control and power. And we should never, ever forget what they are.

Ditch the Screen, Embrace the Green

So what’s a druid to do?  Ditch the Screen, Embrace the Green.  It sounds easy, it is a simple catchphrase, but it really difficult. Why? For the same reason that living sustainably is really difficult–modern life is carefully designed to make us into consumers of technologies, and to work, live, and exist in certain ways. As long as we are part of modern life (as nearly all of us are forced to be for economic reasons), we have to engage with these screens on some level.  So, just like making sustainable life choices, I see these issues with screens as being something we need to tackle from multiple angles and try different things to see what sticks.  I’m going into this with the assumption that you are like me, which is that you are stuck in modern life, although like me, you dream of fleeing to the woods.  If you can already flee to the woods, I don’t know why you are here reading this blog rather than outside talking to some ferns or something.

I’m going to offer some suggestions for how I’ve been thinking about and working to eliminate my own screen use, and I hope that you will chime in as well.

#1. Take regular and extended technology detox breaks.

Since the technologies are addicting, the first thing I suggest you do is do a technology detox.  Detox = detoxification, and yes, I do think based on my last post we can say that these technologies have toxicity to our bodies, minds, hearts, and spirits.  Like any addictive substance, when you first try to simply turn off the screens you may find yourself fidgety, agitated, or uncomfortable because the screen is gone.  Push through this.  If you give yourself a few days without screens and technology, you will undergo some pretty radical and fundamental shifts.  Your awareness and connection to everything will deepen.  Your attention span will get longer.  You will find yourself doing interesting things you hadn’t done before, things you’ve been meaning to do.  You’ll find yourself with a lot more time. I’ve been doing this for many years, I call it my “going dark” retreats (where the “going dark” refers both to removing artificial lighting and being in the firelight as well as the elimination of screens.

But most importantly, I think this stepping back helps put everything in perspective.  You are no longer being fed a constant stream of notifications, media, and other people’s words and stories.  It allows you to be with your own thoughts–your own mind, and work with the spirits of nature in a fundamentally deeper and more connected way.  The longer you do it, the more your own senses will open and shift, the more alive you will feel, and the more connected you will become.  Try it if you haven’t yet.

Finally, after you have stepped back for a few days (or a week or more), you can evaluate your own screen use and see how you want to proceed.

#2. Evaluate your current screen use and ask questions.

Knowing where you start is half the battle. I think that evaluating your screen use and making changes is best done after a technology detox (see above). The questions you might want to ask are: How do you use screens? How much time a day do you spend on them? Are you happy with this amount of time?  Be curious about your own use and collect some data (many screens have this kind of thing built in or you can find apps).  You might also create a list of ways that you feel the screens are generative–that is, they are helpful to you, bring good into your life, or help you accomplish things vs. the ways in which you feel the screens are disruptive to your mind, body, heart, and spirit.  That kind of list can help you evaluate what you are doing.  You can also ask questions and be curious: Are you happy with your screen use? Do you want to make a change?  Understanding yourself and your own use can be a good first step.

One of the things that doing the detox, evaluation, and lists did for me was to realize also that not all screen time is created equal. Some may be more reasonable for you to engage in than others or even beneficial–and this is a decision you can make as you take a look at your own use. To me, there is a world of difference between reading plain text on a screen (without video, ads, etc) vs. scrolling on the present-day video-rich Instagram or Facebook (which makes my head explode).  I also realized that I had beneficial uses of screens for writing this blog and my books and other things, and with all the notifications turned off and light music, this is a very generative, nourishing space for me (I also write by hand, but that’s usually reserved for my private journaling practice). I also have no problem using screens for scanning and editing my artwork. In these cases, I am using the screen as a tool to write ideas or get my work out there, which seems like a productive and generative use. Where screens really go south for me is with social media, especially in the proliferation of short-form video everywhere, and also notifications.  I work to avoid those kinds of spaces as much as possible.

So figure out what you do, who you are, and what you need, and you can decide if you want to set some limits, shift some behavior, or change anything else.  The rest of the suggestions can help you do that in this post.

#3. Observe and interact with the world of nature around you, sans screen.

One of the things that I have noticed in teaching plant walks and herbalism in the last few years that people now depend on technology rather than their own eyes, whereas even 5 years ago, people were more willing to engage with the plants themselves.  Rather than spending any time at all looking at a plant or mushroom to understand it, people will immediately pull out the screen to snap photos to put into apps and to help them iD.  While the technologies that help people quickly identify plants or mushrooms can be helpful to beginners, they are not actually helping you know the plants.  I always approach these with a healthy dose of skepticism because I know that either the technologies are wrong (in the case of like 50% of mushrooms) or they may be inaccessible (unaffordable, no service, etc).  Again, you might consider #2 in relation to your interaction with nature and make some decisions.

To me, there is absolutely no substitute for the knowledge in your head and your own experience. For millennia, humans learned all of this knowledge about nature through careful observation and intuition, and we passed that knowledge on.  I still think that’s the best way to learn and interact with nature. To get started, find some human teachers if you can.  If you can’t, I always recommend the Botany in a Day book for this.  Even if you don’t have someone to teach you, take the time to observe and interact with the plant, mushroom, or tree as a being before involving the screen is a good idea.

The other part of this is that I think this is really important to be able to interact with the world around us in a healthy, reverent, and connected way.  I don’t want a screen mediating my experience in nature.  I don’t want to have to pay for some bad mushroom app to misidentify mushrooms for me, I want to look at the mushrooms myself and interact. Remember that this is part of our ancestral human legacy. The spirits of nature don’t want to interact with my screen either.

#4. Lower people’s expectations by not responding immediately.

The always-on mentality that is created with mobile technology is not healthy for anyone.  We all need breaks away from screens, with our own thoughts, in nature.  I make it a point to take time to respond to emails, not check my work emails during weekends, and not immediately respond to notifications.  I find that this makes me feel much better and creates space for me to be myself, be in the land, and be creative. Why? Because I should be able to determine when I engage and respond to people using technology.  Remember, you control your response time.  And if people know you don’t respond quickly, then they will change how they interact and their espectations of you.

#5. Approach all new technology with a healthy dose of skepticism

In the modern age, we are conditioned to immediately be excited and embrace any new technology.  I saw this with AI, where everyone was going nuts about it. You see it all the time, some new piece of tech shows up. Meanwhile, I and the tens of thousands of other artists in the world are on our soapboxes , asking the hard questions about if these technologies are good.  I have been very clear in my disdain for AI, a perspective that has only grown as AI has become more and more built into everything in US society.  So be skeptical and take a step back before jumping in!  And I would use the

#6. Stay behind the curve: use the oldest screens you can.

This is something I learned from John Michael Greer, and it is a lesson that serves me well.  I may have to have a phone for work and two-step authentication, but I don’t have to have an expensive new phone. I run the oldest operating system, I use the oldest phone I can buy, and avoid the new versions of technology when at all possible.  Eventually, I am forced to upgrade, but I still work to keep myself behind the curve.  While this was always a good idea, trying to avoid the proliferation of AI in everything seems also like a good idea.  Often these technologies and older versions are actually much cheaper and work just fine.

#7. Subvert the screen and use it on your own terms. 

If you are going to have to use the tech, do whatever you can to subvert the technology and make it work for you. Pay attention to things like security and privacy, educate yourself on what the devices do, and find workarounds.  Take back your attention and your time from technology.

For example, one of the things that I have a very hard time with as a dyslexic person are notifications.  They are an awful invention and when you sit down on a modern computer or use a modern phone, the pop ups constantly try to get your attention.  Notifications are awful, and I really want nothing to do with them.  I have been subverting them since the beginning.  At first, it was as simple as turning them all off, but now they’ve gotten wise to people like me and some programs have built-in “always on” notifications I’m not allowed to turn off.  So I figured out recently that I could turn everything off again with do not disturb mode and actually just use a word processor for few hours without a zillion pop-ups.  No sounds for new email, no pop-ups, no notifications. I have my computer now permanently in do-not-disturb mode and that seems to be working pretty well.  Like this morning I’ve been writing for a few hours and have been writing in peace–my writing music (which I purchased and do not stream, so no ads) and no notifications, sounds, or anything else.  It allows me to actually focus and get into a deep flow state.

#8. Create phone-free spaces.

Consider how you might create phone-free spaces in your life and in your family or friend circles. Hike in the woods? Phone free.  Time in the garden? Phone free. The other thing here is other people’s technology can be equally as disruptive as your own.  Even if you are embracing living in a reduced technology situation, a lot of your friends and family are not.  I have a hard time when I’m trying to have a nice meal with a friend and they are on their phones.  I try to hedge this stuff off by simply saying, hey, can we leave the phones in the car or turn them off for a meal?  Or if you are hanging out with friends, ask everyone to silence their phones so you aren’t constantly harassed by their notifications.  (Once you have turned off all of the stuff, it becomes quite jarring to have to be around it again!)

#9. Go into areas that have no signal regularly and enjoy your peace and freedom.

I regularly take overnight kayak trips in areas that have no cell phone signal because I love the break from technology.  Find these places and embrace them!

I hope these examples are helpful to you as you think about embracing the green!  Have you already tried any of these things? Do you have other suggestions that aren’t on the list that you want to share?

PS: I wanted to share that the Ancient Order of Druids in America has three open workshops between October and December via zoom.  Please check out our page. I will be offering a workshop on the Sphere of Protection in November! 🙂