If triggers are pulled while you’re on your trip—say, a coworker ignoring an OOO, or a slew of social media notifications you forgot to turn off—Spence suggests setting (or re-setting) clear boundaries, even if that requires, say, reiterating when you’ll be back online to tend to work projects. Similarly, don’t be afraid to put group chats that get dramatic on Do Not Disturb mode.
3. Put down the phone—before the vacation
If the goal of your trip is to relax, but every time you try to do that at home, you end up in a Twitter beef, understand that changing your location won’t immediately solve these problems. Instead, practice taking breaks from your phone a few weeks before your vacation.
“Going cold turkey is not the answer—you will just get more and more anxious,” says Larry D. Rosen, professor emeritus at California State University Dominguez Hills and author of The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World. “I would suggest starting to ‘wean’ yourself from constant tech use slowly, using what I call a tech break.”
Taking a tech break means giving yourself timed one-minute breaks from a task every 15 minutes. During this minute-long break, you can check your phone notifications, scroll down your timeline, whatever you want. When the minute is over, you put the phone down and continue doing what you were before. Once you’ve got that down, you’ll slowly increase the time between breaks to 30 or even 60 minutes. “This shows your brain that you do not have to be constantly connected,” says Rosen. “When you are on vacation this will help you feel less ‘nomophobic’ [a phobia of not having your mobile phone] when you are not using your tech,” Rosen says.
Keeping up with this practice after the vacation isn’t a bad idea either, Rosen adds.
4. Switch your phone screen to grayscale mode
Instagram influencers with stunning, vibrant feeds is not a coincidence. Our brains are drawn to bold colors, music, and, thus, the content creators who present all of the above as their lifestyle. That’s why switching your phone to greyscale mode (pretend you’re back in your Nokia brick-phone days) could make it easier to disconnect. “Switching [your] phone from color to grayscale mode makes every screen experience slightly less compelling,” says Adam Alter, New York University marketing professor and author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked.
He says it’s so hard for us to disconnect because “the apps on our phones deliver unpredictable rewards, create goals for us, and rob us of the so-called stopping cues that usually nudge us on to a new experience.” Stopping cues in other situations might include credits rolling at the end of a movie, or feeling full once you’ve eaten enough. Apps, on the other hand, are engineered to keep us engaged.
To turn your iOS device to grayscale, follow these instructions; those with Android devices can follow these steps.
5. Be realistic about device usage
Over the last decade, smartphones have only gotten faster, offered more applications, and found ways to make our lives easier (it sure is nice being able to order takeout without leaving the couch or pretend you’re still working by responding to the occasional email during happy hour). When it comes to setting new boundaries with your devices while traveling, it’s important to be realistic. Before heading out, get an idea of which apps you use the most and how much time you spend on them. Of those apps, decide which are absolutely necessary to get through the day (i.e. weather, navigation, or a translation app depending on where you’re going) and which are not.