Turning off technology is about mental wellbeing – not becoming a digital hermit
At a conference in Cannes eight years ago, I sat next to a producer who was working on an ambitious TV project about anthropology. We were both listening to a speech by a TV executive and I was in full conference flow, frenetically typing (badly) and flicking between emails. I must have been exhausting to sit next to, because at the end he turned to me with a mixture of weary astonishment and concern. "It's not good for you to work like that," he said. "Why don't you just listen, and think about what he is saying?"
I very much felt that I had been listening - look at my reams of digital notes, my laptop hunch, my aching fingers. I couldn't be working any harder! And there certainly weren't any other journalists in the room kicking back and absorbing the atmosphere. "Have you ever tried meditation?" he asked me. I didn't exactly dismiss what he said, but felt like meditation was something other people did, and I thought I was happy and fulfilling my obligations with my furious, restless output.
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