Along with about 15 other Oxford graduate students, I recently spent four days at an academic retreat in Rome. Although we stayed at a scenic villa with stunning views of Lake Albano, it would be wrong to brand the trip as a “vacation.” It was a study session, during which we were expected to read and write. We were allowed to use our computers, but we didn’t have internet and had to surrender our phones upon arrival. 

I was somewhat excited to give up my phone. Updates from news apps constantly pop up on my screen, and I thought a news detox might be a refreshing change. I cannot go four days without writing, but I welcomed a few days without Slack notifications assigning me a new article to edit. (Apologies to my boss, Judson.) Like everyone else who has ever published something online, I often receive unpleasant direct messages; in response to my recent article about Dylan Mulvaney, one LGBTQ+ activist with over 14,000 followers wrote to me saying “Hope your [sic] choke on your hatred” and further attempted to get my university funding revoked. I was happy to temporarily ignore my inbox and comments of this nature. 

So, how were my four days of being phone-free?

While many people confront their social-media dependency when deprived of their phone, I had to manage a much more embarrassing habit: writing in my sleep. Both National Review staff and fellow readers will find it ridiculous that, occasionally, ideas or sentences for my articles occur in my dreams. When this happens, I roll over with my eyes half open and type it into the notes app. (Sometimes, after a cup of coffee in the morning, I realize whatever I wrote is completely stupid and I delete it.) In Italy, I reached across the pillow to jot down a sentence, but alas, there was neither a phone nor a notepad, so I’ve forgotten whatever it was I wanted to say. 

Unfortunately, I spent two days lying in bed fighting off an awful flu. I was so exhausted and debilitated that I couldn’t have scrolled through Twitter if I had tried. As I shivered in the dark room, I wanted to play classical tunes or a podcast on my phone to keep myself a bit entertained and make the time pass a bit faster. Instead, I only heard the maids vacuuming the hallway, the lawnmower zigzagging across the grass, and bugs hitting my window.

My fever was disorienting, but so was the absence of a clock in my room. I didn’t have any device to set an alarm, and I had no way to tell time (aside from making an estimate by looking outside). When I woke up in the morning, I wasn’t sure if it was 6:00 or 10:00. Some people might find this blissful. But I found it unsettling, especially because I am a tedious planner who likes knowing what to do and when.

During the night, if I left my bed to use the restroom or refill my water bottle, I wanted to use the iPhone flashlight feature to navigate the unfamiliar, dark hallways. Without it, I wandered around haphazardly — and straight into a wooden door. (That really hurt, but I heroically suppressed my scream to avoid waking people up.) The flashlight feature would have been similarly helpful when I was trying to find the earring that I dropped under the bed.

After the fever broke and I regained a bit of energy, I spent some time reading outside. I wanted to snap a picture of the sunlight dancing on the lake — but I couldn’t, since my phone was locked away. It wasn’t that I wanted to share a picture widely on social media; I wanted an image as a keepsake of the beautiful landscape (and to send to my mom).

Now that I’ve returned to Oxford, I can confirm that it wasn’t difficult to relinquish my phone. But it was inconvenient. I realized that I didn’t miss accessing the world, or connecting with people — sorry, everyone. Instead, I missed the other technologies that are contained within my pocket-sized device. We marvel at the relatively recent developments that allow us to do what was considered impossible only decades ago, like using FaceTime to reach someone on another continent or face-recognition identification for a wide range of accounts. But perhaps I value its simplest features — alarm, radio, camera, notepad, flashlight — the most.