We’ve all done it. You promise yourself you’ll spend less time on your phone or even download an app that’s designed to help you disconnect. It works for a day or two until work emails and social media notifications pull you back down the rabbit hole.
Creating healthy boundaries with technology is hard when you’re deep in the routines that require you to stay connected, which is why willpower isn’t the best solution. What can work is putting yourself somewhere that naturally shifts your attention elsewhere.
When Your Surroundings Become the Main Event
It’s easy to underestimate just how much your environment shapes your daily habits. Your phone and laptop are always within reach, and those notification pings have become familiar background noises. It’s difficult to stop yourself from quickly checking ‘just one thing’.
Put yourself somewhere different, though, and those habits start to loosen their grip.
For example, with an Alaska cruise from Vancouver, you’re surrounded by mountains, glaciers, and the occasional whale. Suddenly, your screen has some serious competition.
That’s because your attention is naturally drawn to what’s happening around you instead of what’s happening online. You don’t need to constantly remind yourself to put your phone down because you’re fully immersed in an experience.
Being away from your usual routine helps, too. Without all those cues that trigger automatic behavior, like waiting for your coffee to brew, it’s much easier to break the cycle of constant scrolling. Before long, you realize a few hours have passed, and you haven’t thought to check your phone once.
The Numbers Behind Why We All Need a Break
If you’ve ever felt like it’s getting harder to concentrate, you aren’t imagining it. The numbers paint a pretty clear picture.
Microsoft’s Work Index found that 48% of employees felt their days were chaotic and fragmented. The same research also highlighted that the average employee spends 57% of their working time communicating through emails, meetings, and chats. This leaves only 43% for actually getting real work done.
It’s not just our work days, either. Dr. Gloria Mark at the University of California, Irvine, conducted some research that showed the average time people stay focused on a single screen before switching has dropped to around 47 seconds.
This constant task switching increases stress and makes it harder for our brains to settle into deep, meaningful concentration.
The bottom line? We need a break from our usual environments.
Where Life Naturally Moves a Little Slower
When you visit remote locations, there are no packed city streets, endless errands, or constant pressure to stay on top of every notification. As your day unfolds a little more slowly, you give yourself permission to do the same.
Exploring the smaller villages of coastal British Columbia, hiking through the national parks of Montana, or watching a sunrise from a ship in Alaska are all experiences that force you to be present. The scenery isn’t something you glance at between emails. It’s the main event.
Without the usual digital distractions, people find themselves sleeping more soundly, spending more time around the dinner table, and having conversations where nobody reaches for their phones. These moments remind us how restorative uninterrupted time can be, and the benefits are far-reaching.
Once you return home with a calmer, clearer mind, it becomes easier to focus, be more conscious about your time and attention, and actually get things done.
Resetting Your Brain Remotely
A digital detox doesn’t mean swearing off technology for good. Phones and laptops are an unavoidable part of life, and they have plenty of benefits. However, devices don’t need to rule your life, and getting away is how you’re going to realize this.
Spending time in places where your phone automatically takes a backseat is the ideal way to reset your relationship with it, and you come home remembering that it’s possible to focus on one thing at a time.