A “vast wasteland” : why the way you’ve been told to digitally detox is wrong.

And how you should detox.

The date is May 9th, 1961. A gentleman named Newton Minow has recently been appointed chairman of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) by John F. Kennedy, president at the time.

On this day, Minow is preparing to deliver his first major speech since his appointment.

This speech, “Television and the Public Interest”, would go on to be cited as one of the most important of its time.

In the speech he addresses members of the National Association of Broadcasters, the individuals at the helm of television programming.

Minow sought to emphasize the important role and responsibility of those controlling programming.

Referring to television, Minow said this:

It used to be said that there were three great influences on a child: home, school, and church. Today, there is a fourth great influence…

Now, Minow was not a battle-hardened critic of television (as chairman of the FCC that would hardly make sense). However, he did advocate for value in the content broadcasters were delivering to their national audiences.

The “Golden Age of Television” is defined as the decade prior to Minow’s appointment. He comments on the of the decline in the quality of programming at the start of the 1960's and the likely negative effect that would have on families and individuals if it were to continue.

Minow made sure in his speech to vocalize that he wasn’t only interested in criticizing television. He clearly recognized its dual nature.

Minow’s most famous remark is when he referred to television as a “vast wasteland”.

When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you’ll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it

It’s not hard to identify some parallels between this description of television in the past and the content delivered via smart device today.

We scroll through our Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat feeds, occasionally reconnecting with a friend, but more often viewing subtly veiled commercials delivered in life-like situations by our favorite celebrities or the it-girl/guy du jour.

We receive newsletters in our inboxes often advertising a product, pushing an agenda or delivering some other targeted call to action.

The news we consume on our devices has even played part, often serving to inform us, but also influencing our moods (as should be the case), and inciting petty — or not-so-petty — arguments and disputes in the comments.

We consume and consume and consume (even most of the traditional media we used to watch on the tube), witnessing, as Minow described, a myriad of game shows, reality shows with unrealistic characters/caricatures, sadism, murder and mayhem, violence, intolerance, airbrushed realities and, of course, ceaseless commercials.

Similarly to what Minow astutely pointed out back in ‘61, when the content we consume on our devices is good, nothing is better.

This might explain why we’re as glued to our devices now as families were to their television sets in a former decade.

But when that content is bad and vile and unrealistic and inflammatory, nothing is worse.

It can easily be argued that we’ve stumbled into our own vast wasteland sometime in the past decade, inspiring our cry for a detox.

So many people are lamenting the loss of yesteryear- the genuine connection of the human experience is lost they cry towards the heavens, hands balled into fists as they grieve from their knees.

Impassioned arguments are made, citing the lack of humanity we’ve cultivated by introducing our smart devices.

Emotional photos (lowered saturation and increased contrast for impact) of lovers, friends and acquaintances all staring vacantly at phones in lieu of into each others eyes are plastered across the internet.

As a matter of fact, the anti-device campaign bears some striking resemblances to an ASPCA commercial.

The popularity of social media/internet/device detoxes ebbs and flows. Campaigns arise and are subsequently ignored for the most part.

As our devices become ever-present (for example, the smart watch on your wrist that has all the functions of your 6-year old desktop computer and more) it seems more and more apparent that we’re not ditching our devices any time soon.

However, that doesn’t negate the fact that these devices can and do affect us, and not always positively.

It’s not necessary to explain the positive influences smart devices have had on our lives. Just watch any Apple unveiling to learn how the latest product will change everything.

It may be more pertinent to explain the harm that can be wrought by your iPhone. The anti-device campaigns are dramatic but still hit us as a little melodramatic.

This may account for the large number of commenters who seem to agree with the sentiment that devices are ruining our lives (“smh, just sad *disappointed emoji*”). Such opinions are expressed online, no doubt often aided by a smart device.

The impact of these messages is limited since they feel so hard to take seriously. We agree on the surface but won’t necessarily take action.

Here’s why:

Devices are not burning down our homes, single-handedly destroying our society and stripping down the very foundations of humanity.

But they are pumping us, day in and day out, full of misinformation, intolerance, confusion, and negative emotions inspired by all the worst bits of humanity.

The cementing of stereotypes portrayed in a fairly scripted and highly doctored “reality” show on your Netflix app. The gut-wrenching intolerance witnessed in the comment sections of YouTube. The awful feeling of inadequacy you get after scrolling over someone’s picture-perfect life as it’s displayed on Instagram.

The exposure to this bile is repeated and compounded. And, like bile, it can eat away at us. It exhausts us.

Truly, when the content is bad, nothing is worse.

Those that cry for detox are right to suggest we distance ourselves from our devices. However, there’s an infinitely better way to do so than locking our phones, e-readers and smart watches in a drawer and jetting off to some impractically expensive “technology retreat”.

What makes it so hard to quit?

Like quitting any habit, it’s hard to go cold turkey. Weaning yourself off gives you a little peace but also gives you a more prolonged pain.

Going cold turkey and not looking back gives an intense burn and withdrawals that, given the right type of substance, can even kill you.

How do we cut out something we get such a high from?

The answer is balance.

When you give up something, you’re leaving a gap. The gap is an open space in your life that leads to profound longing if it’s not filled back up, either by that thing you’re determined to give up or by something else that you derive equal pleasure from.

If you give up junk food, you’d better have something to fill that hole with, and fast, before you buy out the mini mart in a couple of days. And celery with hummus is not going to cut it.

You’d be better off finding foods love to satisfy the void and keep you from going off the deep end and relapsing.

It’s the same with our devices. You can’t just cut them out, willy-nilly, any-which-way.

Assigning ourselves “time outs” from our precious toys is near-impossible, especially with the functionality they offer. They’re so dang useful.

Here’s an extreme example — if you have a work phone it’s fair to assume it’s a smart phone. Unless you want to answer some unpleasant questions posed by your boss, you’re not going to lock it away and vow not to touch it. You can’t.

Building up a habit of not touching your device during dinners with friends or special occasions has its place but it’s not a solution for the real problem we need to detox from.

You don’t need to lock away your device to eliminate most of its bad effects. You don’t have to build up the discipline to not touch it. You need to address the content you’re choosing to consume. You just need to detox from the bad stuff.

Like in Minow’s day, there’s entertainment and value to be found in the content we consume. But that value is limited and sometimes hard to pick out.

To control the amount of time and attention you spend consuming the “bile content” is to control the effects it has on your life.

You have to honor the balance and fill that gap.

Choosing not to troll certain forums, comment sections or Facebook pages can be one way to do this. Another is unsubscribing from email lists and other content that only serves to advertise or pitch unwanted info.

Even hiding or blocking the material posted by certain users and social media accounts that trigger or upset you can make your experience more pleasant.

Here’s the challenge: for some reason, we’re still drawn to things that disgust, frustrate or otherwise make us unhappy.

Sometimes it’s to validate our feelings or opinions. Other times there’s a more deep-seated psychological reason.

And often it’s just because we’re humans and our nature dictates that we like to view nasty things — just out of pure curiosity or to size up a threat *shrug emoji*.

To limit this impulse and curb our appetite for bile would lead to a detox that’s much more impactful than a 48 hour break from our devices all-together.

Here’s how you do it:

Sign up exclusively for mailing lists, accounts, YouTube channels, Facebook posts and visual media sources that excite, refresh and inform you without unnecessarily infuriating or stressing you. Command your smartTV to record only programs you genuinely feel joy and derive value from and tune in to that customized playlist later on rather than surfing the channels.

This practice takes deliberate action, commitment and time to separate the chaff from the wheat. It would be a lie to say otherwise.

But it also serves to complete the same objective Minow posed to his audience in 1961 to improve the quality of content the viewers receive.

We can’t speak directly to the decision makers of most media and entertainment outlets with much reliability that things will change for the better.

A lot of the content we access on our devices is driven by views and clicks and consumption- most unfortunately, we’ve worked up a voracious appetite for trash.

We feed the machine that feeds us right back.

Clicks and views, in this system we’ve helped grow, drive funding. The dollars aren’t being poured into developing exclusively pure, honest, feel-good content.

It’s on the stuff that shocks, infuriates and disgusts you that you can’t help but tune in for.

So it’s up to you to do the legwork of overhauling your feeds on your own.

Organizing and improving the deluge as a form of detox is perhaps a more realistic alternative to smashing your devices (which apparently and ironically makes excellent click-worthy fodder for YouTube channels).

I highly doubt many families were throwing their TVs out of the window to escape the torrential downpour of mind-numbing and nutrition-less filth that was television.

Neither should we.

It can be argued that television has not made the dramatic improvement Minow was hoping to see. It can even be argued that we’ve developed to be even worse off in that department.

However, the level of personal autonomy we have to customize what we see is more in our hands than ever before and can be far more personalized than flipping the channel.

Our devices hold huge potential to enrich our lives and assist us in tasks from the mundane to the profound. There’s no need to shun them.

By engineering our consumption as possible, we continue to reap their benefits without unrealistically eliminating them or wearing ourselves thin.

Detox is even closer than you may think.