Our favorite tips for logging off

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1:36I'm your friend David Pierce and on today's episode we're going to talk about disconnecting. This is the beginning of a long holiday weekend for a lot of us here in the U.S. In general, I hope a lot of you are planning some big, elaborate, exciting, global, multinational summer vacation. And I figured it might be helpful to poll a bunch of people on our team for the best tips that they have on disconnecting. I will say The Verge is not famously a place everybody is really good at being offline, but we still grabbed a bunch of people and decided when you want to get offline, particularly as somebody who spends a lot of time online, on devices, looking at screens, how do you get off of it?

2:14We asked a bunch of people. We have some great tips coming up. I think you're going to enjoy them. I have two before we get started. My first one is, especially on vacation, to designate a place for technology. Have all of your laptops and phones, all of your chargers, all of your everything in one place, whether it's a table or like have this be the phone couch, make it so that technology is available. I think in general, the idea of like not looking at your device for a week is probably not realistic to most people, but it should be a thing you have to go to, especially on vacation, rather than something that is just in your pocket all the time.

2:52You will be amazed at how many fewer times you find yourself just absentmindedly checking it when you have to like stand up and walk across the house to go open your laptop. That's number one. Number two is get everybody on board with whatever disconnecting plan that you have. I found that phone usage in particular is sort of a cascading problem. You sit down on the couch and it's like, okay, we could, we could do a puzzle. We could play a game. We could watch a movie together. We could all go do something. But then one person takes out their phone and the mood sort of shifts downward. And then somebody else takes out their phone and it sort of shifts downward.

3:25And all of a sudden, you just have this waterfall effect of everybody being on their phone. But if you can get everybody to buy into this strategy of like, whether you want to put your phones into a bowl and have nobody look at them all day, whether you want to have the technology placed, then it's like, okay, we're all going to sit around the table and do our work for an hour while we are here sort of in a communal technology space. And then we're going to go back to something else. Getting everyone to agree on the approach to screens goes an incredibly long way. And I have found that sitting around being the board one while everybody else looks at their phone sort of defeats the purpose.

3:59But making it so that no one else can do it and you all have to figure out something to do together is the whole point. So that's my other tip. Get everybody on board, designate a place. That's my plan for the weekend. We'll see how it goes. All right, let's get into all of our other tips. Bunch of stuff for you for disconnecting. My great hope is that you get to the end of this episode, you turn off this podcast, you go enjoy your long weekend, and you don't even think about screens for a while. That's what I'm hoping for me. It's what I hope for you too. Let's get into some tips. Verge senior reporter Hayden Field.

4:31Hi, Hayden. Hey. I've known you a while and you are not a person I would say is like terrific at disconnecting, but do you have a good disconnecting tip for when you really want to do it? So number one, any app that I feel like I spend a lot of time on, I just make it a little harder to get to. I just put it in a folder on like the second screen of my phone, which is a really, all my tips are pretty like low tech, but I think sometimes that's the best because we're all lazy. Introducing any amount of friction in like a thing that you usually do mindlessly, I feel like is a huge help. So that's a big help for me.

5:07And then my other tips are just about like notifications. Like I don't have notifications on for any apps at all. I only have like, of course, texts and calls, but every other app, I don't think it's a big deal if I just check it when I check it. So someone Instagram messages me, okay, like that's probably not time sensitive. If they really needed to get ahold of me, they would text me or call me. So that's a big tip for me. It's like just turning off all notifications, even email, because it's like I check email enough. I don't need to be notified the second an email comes in, especially since like in our workplace, no one's emailing us if they want to get ahold of us right away internally.

5:45But wait, when you say all notifications, do you literally, you literally mean every single, no exceptions, all notifications on your phone? I guess now that I think about it, Venmo, I have notifications on because I'm like, I mean, obviously I want to pay someone right away, but otherwise no. Yeah. No notifications. I'm very proud of you for that. Signal because it's messaging. But yeah. And then my very last tip is this is kind of crazy, but I don't check who views my story on Instagram, who likes my posts on Twitter or Instagram. I only read comments. I don't check like likes. I don't check views on any social media platform because it helps me feel like I'm just posting into the void.

6:25I'm like, I don't it's none of my business. Who's looking at my stuff? I don't want to know if they comment. Great. Otherwise, I don't want to be like too aware of who's perceiving me because I think that is the biggest thing that is our detriment on social media a lot of times. So yeah, those are my tips for maybe not unplugging totally, but for not being as negatively affected by if you don't want to unplug completely. That's pretty good. Do you, do you like turn that feeling on and off when you're like, sometimes I will go look at who viewed my story or is this just like a blanket rule you have for yourself?

6:57Post into the void, Don't worry about it. It's blanket. I haven't looked in years because I think that if you start, you never stop. You know what I mean? It's like if you like it's kind of a blanket rule for myself and my mental health. I'm like, I don't want to know. And also, I can note I remember from years ago when I would check, I would act differently. I'd be like, oh, well, what if this person sees it? Like, oh, maybe I shouldn't post this. And it's like, who cares? And same with Twitter. Like, I don't need to know individually who's liking my stuff. Like, OK, it just doesn't matter. So if you need to know something, there's a comment, you know.

7:27So I just think for some people, maybe they can handle that. But for me, I think I just become too aware of who's perceiving me. And I would rather just be myself the normal way. I love that. All right, Hayden, thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks. All right, next up, The Verges, Jen Toohey from a hotel room somewhere in deep South Carolina. Hi, Jen. Hi. We're talking to people about disconnecting and how they get offline. and we are a uniquely online group of people. How do you disconnect? Give me all your good tips. Okay, so I have two. I have one for when you stay at home and one for one sort of quality of life tip.

8:07So quality of life tip, go camping. Ooh, okay. No Wi-Fi anywhere out in the woods. In fact, I'm in Northern South Carolina right now and surrounded by mountains and woods and my husband's already planning our next camping trip. So, yes. We're going to do this from like a yurt next time. Yeah. And he selects campgrounds that do not have cell service or Wi-Fi. So you have no choice. Although my children do manage to find like the one edge of the mountain they can go stand on and hold their phone up in the air. But other than that, that is because you just disconnecting isn't just about disconnecting from the Internet.

8:51It's about disconnecting from your everyday life. And there's nothing that is more of a contrast for me from my technologically advanced home to a travel trailer. I don't do the tent thing. I do need a trailer. I respect that. And, you know, that is the perfect experience for me for disconnecting. Simple to do, anyone can do it. That's the other advantage. And then the other simple to do anyone can do it tip I have in your home. So if you're staying at home and you want to disconnect is just turn off the Wi-Fi. It's simple, but it works. And in my home especially, so I use an Eero router at the moment and you can just literally hit a button in the app, Wi-Fi off.

9:37And that does mean that nothing in my home will work anymore. The lights go off. Everything. The fridge doesn't work. Some things will continue to work thanks to local control. But yes, for me, it's just for the whole family, it's a way of forcing everyone to get off their devices and hang out together. I mean, you can buy, like there's a device called the brick that you can buy. But you don't really need that if you've got dedicated downtime. You're like, okay, let's just turn off the internet. And that gives no TV, no cell phones, no music, just family time. That's very good. Do you do that on a regular basis or is that like a sort of break-in case of emergency?

10:21I try and do it when we're all at home and we're doing something together. I do. Because, yes, you can do do not disturb on your phone or you can use parental controls to turn off their iPhone. You know, there's things you can do. The problem with that is I'm still on my phone trying to do it. Like, and then I get distracted. And whereas just flip the switch and everyone's offline and it's fair and equal. And yeah, so I have I try and I mean, regular basis, maybe like once a month. I should do it more. I should do it more though. You've inspired me, especially this summer. Yeah, I agree. I think turn off the Wi-Fi.

11:01We're all going outside is a thing I should probably say more in my house. It's simple and it works. So that was that would be my advice. It's a good one. All right. Thank you, Jen. Appreciate it. All right. Next up, The Verge's senior tech editor, Marina Galparina. Hi, Marina. Hey, you you have a tip that it seems like it is born of just the pure anarchy of living in New York City. Tell me about it. Let your phone die. Just don't charge it. Is this not the same as just turn your phone off, which I think is like a lovely but totally untenable idea. But you can't turn it back on. That's the. Oh, that's interesting.

11:39So, OK, do you is this a thing you actually do in your life? This is a thing I actually do in my life. I have an alarm clock on my Apple watch, so I don't need my phone necessarily. I tried plugging it in in the other room. That doesn't work. I tried screen time limits. I just keep snoozing them. Doesn't work. So thankfully, my outlet doesn't work by my bed. So the phone just dies. and then the evening's over. So you take this to me and it is time for me to go to bed because my phone is dead now? Or watch TV, whatever, yeah. I kind of love that, actually. Like, I'm just, I'm in a race against my phone.

12:16The news is just over. No more news. No more Instagram. Is this a thing you started doing on purpose or just discovered because literally your phone just dies sometimes because your outlet is broken? The outlet. And it's not the first outlet I recently moved and the outlet in my old apartment also didn't work. There was like one working outlet per room because Bushwick, you know. This is the universe sending you a sign that this is a good idea and you should keep doing this. Yes. So, okay. My actual philosophical question here is I'm trying to decide if this is the same bit of advice that people give who are like, just have more discipline.

12:50Don't look at your phone as much. And I always just want to give those people a middle finger and be like, if that was, if I could do that, we wouldn't be having this conversation. why is letting my phone die not just being a more disciplined person and not looking at my phone well they always say that willpower is not a way to overcome addictive behaviors so um just create barriers between yourself and the behavior and that is for me to keep the phone not charged i mean it's pretty bad if there's like a family emergency i guess this is this is the problem i i sincerely grapple with this because that's the exact thing right it's like Like, sure, I could charge my phone in the basement.

13:29I sleep upstairs. It could be fine. I could be far away from my phone. There is that little tiny part of me that is like, well, what if something happens? What if somebody needs to get in touch with me? Has this ever happened in the time? Have you ever missed anything in the time that you have been letting your phone die at night? I've missed questions about weather from my mother when she hears there's rain in New York. But nothing. But I get up so early and most of my calls that are important would come from three hours beforehand. So it's still evening almost. If there's an emergency, we're good.

14:02It's fine. No, this is a good tip. And I like the idea of having external forces require you to not use your devices. This is a thing that's kind of coming up over and over as we talk to people for this episode. It's like I need to engineer some act of God that prevents me from using my devices. Make it inconvenient. In a way that is actually helpful. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. All right, Marina, that's good stuff. Thank you. Thank you. Is Donald Trump still cool? Well, at first, here's what he was promising to America. He was promising change. Yeah, promising a big change. Has he lived up to that?

14:35No. No, I wouldn't say so. I wouldn't say so. I'm disappointed. We're in Washington, D.C. for one of the events that Donald Trump is throwing for America's 250th anniversary, and it's UFC night. Proud to be American. We got free tickets. It's just going to be a great time. That's about it. It's an opportunity to talk to a group that was central in the 2024 election, young men. Why do we think Trump and men seem to have a connection? I feel like he just knows how to advertise himself for the younger proud. It aligns with masculinity, I feel like, to a certain extent. But if they don't like Donald Trump, what do they prefer politically otherwise?

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15:49years and hardly made this one because the United States was supposedly worried about Ebola, even though no one on the team had Ebola. If you were watching Senegal Norway last week and were wondering where all the Senegalese fans were, they weren't let into the country. But you probably noticed we let in like a million Vikings. I wonder what's different about their fan bases. Oh, and who could forget we're literally bombing one of the countries that up until Friday was playing here. Missiles aren't the problem. But, but somehow the vibes at this World Cup are mostly positive. The World Cup might just be healing us on today's Explain from Vox.

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17:51All right, next up, Meredith Haggerty, Verge editor. Welcome. Thank you for having me. First time on The Vergecast. Yeah, yeah. It's a huge day for you. It is a huge day for me. Yes, thank you. I'm honored. Tell me your disconnecting tip. What's your plan? Okay, my disconnecting tip is basically the library, but not just like going to the library. It is having something to read that is not on your phone that also has basically a deadline. They're like little time bombs. Especially if you get new releases, you have to return them or someone else is waiting for you. And that pressure sometimes occasionally keeps me from playing a game called Drop the Cat on my phone that I hate.

18:29And I just wish I wasn't playing it. um wait okay so walk me through this tactically yeah you're like a you're like a put yourself on the list for a hundred books yes and then and then return them on time or risk the wrath of the librarians kind of person yeah i well i really need to get a grade a in library obviously so uh yeah i i whenever i go to a bookstore i will just put stuff on my like brooklyn library app hold list uh that did result in me like maybe two weeks ago getting seven books at once and showing up and being like, I actually need to come back with another bag. And I'm not going to read all those books.

19:06But, you know, the ones that are most urgent, I will get to and I will feel guilty about them if I don't. Because I've been waiting for Strangers, the Bell Burden memoir, for like three months or something. And now it's mine. And I like it fine, but it's really important that I read the whole thing before it has to go back. I feel like you're basically just creating for yourself an endless set of read this book deadlines. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And they're, you know, the guilt is very important to me as an Irish Catholic. So. Okay. So are you a read only on paper kind of person or are you doing this through like Libby and stuff too?

19:45No, I am a paper reader only. I have never like, I will just forget that I'm reading a book on ebook. I have been reading a book called Scruples about like a fancy department store for maybe four years on my iPad. And it is incredibly stupid novel from the 80s. And I can't finish it. Like I should have gone in one ear and out the other. And it's bedeviling me. So real books only for Meredith. So I've gone back to this is going to sound ridiculous. I've probably read two physical books this year for the first time in a decade. Like I read a lot. I read a lot of books, but I have almost exclusively been a Kindle reader for a very long time.

20:24And I kind of have been amazed at the extent to which I've had that exact same experience of like, there's literally just a thing of like when I have the book sitting on my kitchen counter and I walk past it, I pick it up and I read. Yeah. In a way that like I didn't when it's my Kindle or my phone, even though ostensibly that thing is with me vastly more often. I just don't notice it the same way as a, oh, I love this book. I should read it experience. Yeah. I mean, there's just other stuff. in my phone that I will do instead if I try to write it like unfortunately Twitter is in there or you know just checking my email which is never interesting and yet like somehow I'm doing that instead of finishing these books that I really want to read.

21:02That's fair I'm trying to do more I have a lot of reading to do for work and a lot of it is like you know PDFs of books and non-fiction of various kinds and I'm trying to do more of that on my devices Kindles and iPads and whatever because I also have to like highlight it and do a lot of that stuff but I'm trying to do now all of my purely for fun reading on physical books. And I'm out there just buying like boxes full of paperbacks. And I got to tell you, it's delightful. I support you in this. I think this is a great move. Books are, you know, books good. Deadlines at the library. Love it. All right.

21:34Meredith, thank you for coming on. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Okay. Bye. Next up, Verge director Owen Grove. Hello, sir. Hey, how you doing? Good. Do you have a good Tip for disconnecting? Whenever I vacation, I am also normally like filled with camera gear because just the nature of the job. I'm always filming something. I'm always shooting something. So to kind of disconnect from that, I would recommend that people bring a worse camera or maybe the second best camera in their arsenal or just be comfortable taking bad pictures. like especially if you're taking something with like a film camera and you're not like building up your you're not going to be looking over your photos once you're done with them you're going to be on your vacation again so once you just snap something with like a film camera i feel like you're able to escape it a little bit better um or even if it is like a digital camera but worse it's something that you're not going to obsess over you're just going to pull it out shoot it and just forget about it and put it back in the pocket and just like not pay attention to as long as it's not something that costs like, you know, like a$3 ,000 camera that you're kind of agonizing over.

22:40At the risk of asking a question, I suspect I know the answer to, why isn't your phone that camera? Just because it's going to lead you into other phone things. It's going to make you want to check your text and check, oh, well, what if I post this photo somewhere? It's going to make you like reconnect to all the stuff that you're trying to get away from. Yeah. Yeah. Are you a proponent of the idea of even somebody who is less into photography than you are bringing a digital camera on vacation instead of relying on your phone to be that thing? That actually strikes me as a pretty universal tip.

23:12Like take your vacation pictures with something other than your phone just because it will keep you away from your phone. yeah also I mean especially if it's something that is kind of novel to you too where it's like you're not used to a point and shoot or even a disposable I mean I know it's not digital but like it makes it fun to take the picture and it makes you not overthink it and just snap it and get rid of it then like that's what you want because then after the fact you get to like look back on a bunch of pictures you didn't like really think too hard about and you get to kind of like get a memory you didn't even remember.

23:44Yeah, I love that. Do you develop all your pictures that way? Like when you go shoot, do you then keep your albums of vacation photos around? Anytime I shoot with anything either disposable or Polaroid or anything that's like an instantly printed piece, like Fujifilm and stuff, it is just like scattered and skewn around my apartment when I get back. It's always kind of fun picking up Pokemon cards that you're like what is this even from? And it's sometimes it's a little dark and you're like, oh, that's from California, I guess. Okay, cool. So I don't know if I would recommend people live their life in chaos like I do.

24:24Maybe you should have an album and organize these things because it makes it like more fun to look back on. But it's also fun just finding a bunch of chaotic pictures all over the place. I sort of like the idea of like coming home from vacation and just sort of fling your photos all over your house and just discover them as you go. So that's like pure anarchy of reliving your vacation is kind of great. I love that. All right, Owen, thank you. It's good stuff. Good to see you. Cool. Oh, my God. Well, joining me now, the broadcast producer, Travis Larchuk, in a truly remarkable pair of sunglasses.