Day 192: Offline by Default

personal

Given that I’ve spent so much time building tools like Intention, Hide Feed, and Hide Likes to curate my experience online, it probably won’t come as a surprise that other aspects of my relationship with technology is fairly atypical.

One of the challenges of having an unconventional approach to social media and digital communication is running afoul of other people’s expectations and assumptions.

In today’s culture of constant connectivity, people are used to receiving instant responses so when they don’t, it’s not uncommon to have them jump to conclusions about being ignored or disliked.

Over a year ago, I bought the domain offlinebydefault.com with the intention of proactively sharing my digital practices to avoid misunderstandings when I don’t respond immediately. I hope that one day, being offline by default will be widely practiced and accepted, and to that end, I plan to use the site to provide an easy way for like-minded people to share similar practices and avoid misunderstandings with their friends. I still haven’t gotten around to building it, but I figured I’d use today’s post as a starting point.

Here’s the main takeaway: I take a long time to respond to messages because I’m offline almost all of the time.

I’ll write a long manifesto on why I do this some other time, but in short: I’ve found that I’m happiest when my attention is able to fully be with whatever’s present. That means being able to enjoy dinner with my housemates without getting distracted by a buzz in my pocket. Or being able to dive deeply into coding for days at a time without checking emails or social media.

In practice, here’s what that means:

  1. My phone is on Do Not Disturb 24/7
  2. On most days, I don’t check messages/emails/Slack/Twitter/etc.

Do Not Disturb

My phone is set up to be on Do Not Disturb from 4:00 AM to 3:59 AM:

Effectively, this means that I’m on DnD 24/7 so that (1) my phone never buzzes and (2) notifications are always hidden.

The only exception to this is that my phone still goes off when I receive a call from someone in my contacts. I do this so that people can get in touch with me if there’s something time-sensitive.

I’ve been doing this for over a year now, and while there are certainly some downsides, the benefits and peace of mind have been more than worth it. How we use our attention shapes us in profound ways, and I believe it’s paramount that we cherish and protect it.

In general, I avoid using my phone as much as possible because its extreme portability makes it really easy to get sucked into mindless browsing. The only exceptions are when using my laptop instead is impractical:

  • Phone calls
  • Time-sensitive communication (e.g. coordinating meeting up)
  • Taking notes on the go
  • Navigating while driving
  • Setting timers

Checking messages

Here’s the general frequency with which I checked different apps and sites over the past month:

  • Messages

    • iMessage: Once every few days
    • Facebook Messenger: Once a week
    • Slack: Once a week
    • Email: Once a week
    • Twitter DMs: Once a week

  • Social media

    • Twitter: Once every few days / once a week
    • Facebook: Almost never
    • Reddit: Almost never
    • Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, everything else: I don’t use it

Given that I was on a super intense coding binge last month, I’ll likely check my messages a bit more often (maybe like twice a week instead of once a week, heh), but I want to make it clear that it’s fairly typical of me to go an entire week without checking my messages.

If you’re used to checking your phone dozens of times a day, I imagine that my habits seem a bit crazy, and that’s exactly why I wanted to write this:

If you message me and don’t get a response in what seems like a long time, I’m not ignoring you — I’m just offline by default!