Unfriending My Ex: And Other Things I'll Never Do (20 page)

Even if we have been using these interactive platforms for years, in the larger scheme of things, we are all beginners at this. So much about the way we think and communicate has changed in so little time. And where we are now with regard to smartphones, social networking, and reality television is a relative hiccup in the face of the changes we will see over the coming decades.

In my quest to find some concrete solutions, I looked to the past. Before I got my smartphone—when I could still focus—I loved to read novels, books about history, and all kinds of articles. I would compare where I was at the time to the people I was reading about, knowing we can always look to history for a set of experiences that mirror our own and try to learn from it.

Please allow me to be a nerd for a minute. In a sense, we can consider ourselves to be living through a new industrial revolution, and our dilemma is mirrored in that of the Luddites, a community of British textile artisans who protested during the
first
industrial revolution, which took place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Luddites were named after Ned Ludd, a guy who, in his dismay over the way machines were taking over his craft, smashed a mechanized loom. He called for a return to a way of doing business
that predated the technology that had created so many social and economic changes and had left so many of his friends and associates without work. The Luddites burned down factories, handloom weavers, and cotton mills. The government responded by making “machine breaking” a capital crime and sentenced many Luddites to death by execution. The Luddite movement ultimately failed because its proponents fully and completely rejected the changes occurring within society.

There were some factory workers who, while also suffering lower wages or lost jobs, just as the Luddites had, took a different approach: they adapted to society’s new landscape and learned how to operate machinery. Some were even forward-thinking enough that they were able to see the positive impact that the industrial revolution would ultimately have on wages, production, and the economy.

From these men and women, as well as from the failure of the Luddites, we learn that we cannot totally reject smartphones, social media, texting, or reality television. A complete and total disavowal of the technological realities our digital age has produced would most definitely end in defeat . . . or at least sad irrelevance.

We can’t hate on our smartphones or our social media any more than we can say electricity or automobiles have destroyed the fabric of our society. Candlelit dinners and bicycle rides are enjoyable activities, but anyone who thinks we can go back to a world without cars or electrical power is delusional. We can’t wish away reality. If we logged off of all types of social media and digital communication,
we would miss out on a crucial aspect of the human experience.

William Powers, author of
Hamlet’s BlackBerry
, told me about a teacher who explained that every time she tried to keep social media out of the classroom or teach students about the importance of face-to-face communication, she would get a call from parents worried that if their kids stopped using social media, they would have no friends and be incapable of networking and getting jobs. I’m sure these parents don’t want their kids to turn into Internet zombies, but they’ve got a point: few who completely forgo the digital world are going to be able to be fully functioning members of the workforce and society.

Still, we can do more to connect in person . . . with people. In writing this book, I expected I would be able to reduce my Internet and smartphone addiction. Or at least I hoped that my digitally acquired attention deficit disorder would become milder. I thought that by writing this book, I would find the willpower to make changes and become a more efficient and focused individual.

I was mostly wrong but a little bit right. My iPhone is still the first thing I check when I wake up and I feel panicked if more than six hours go by without my checking Instagram. I still find it hard to enjoy a concert or a day at the beach without posting
something
. And it is more than likely that you found out about this book because of some aspect of social media. I have no doubt I will be Instagramming, tweeting, Facebooking, and Tumblring about it daily.

I didn’t want to feel as if I were utterly alone in my failure,
so I asked William Powers if writing his book about the perils of technology helped him at all with his addiction. “That is the one thing that has surprised me,” he told me. “I thought that after writing the book and being so public with it that I would get to a place where it would be better for me. It hasn’t. That said, there is solace in knowing that so many other people have this issue—our whole culture is addicted, basically. This made me feel both better because my book maybe helped someone, but also worse in the sense that I’m really worried about where we are going.” His admission reassured me (kind of ).

Countless articles and books tell you that you can lose weight by taking special pills or limiting your intake of x, y, or z food products. Some are making the same kind of insane promises to fix digital addiction: I even saw an article recently saying that you could solve Internet addiction
in three easy steps that take no effort from you
! I did not bother to read the body of the article because it harkened back to my dieting days, and I know how that ends (no skinnier). The solution won’t come in a bottle.

As Powers told me, “The digital future is not just about taking time off from your screen, but also
being thoughtful
about how technology has evolved . . . You need to realize that you can shape your own life no matter how tethered you feel in this digital world.” What does shaping your own life really mean? To start, we can begin showing up for meetings and dinners with friends without our hands and eyes constantly on our phone. We can give people we’re actually with our full attention in the moment we’re actually
with them. We can do our best to show up for our everyday lives.

Here is what I’ve resolved to do: make more phone calls. Make an effort to call at least one friend a day, to set up a date with them, and when I meet them in person, I am going to put my phone away. Perhaps I’ll even arrange Skype calls or video chats, so I can see my friends’ faces and hear voices rather than just reading
hahaha
or gauging tone via emoticons.

I work in a face-paced environment where there is a lot of yelling and orders are given left and right, but before I come home to my wife, I have to change my mind-set, reclaim my compassion and patience. I am able to do that because I am aware of the difference between the two atmospheres. I think we have to learn to do this with social media as well. There is the terse, somewhat distracted, everything-happens-at-once world of social media interaction, and then there is the slower, more focused human-to-human interaction. With an overabundance of social media, we act like our social media selves when we sit down to dinner or attempt to read or do work. My phone lights up constantly with texts, e-mails, Instagram, Twitter, SnapChat, and Facebook notifications, and even CNN and Seeking Alpha alerts. When I go to dinner with a friend, I cannot stop this from happening. What I can do, though, is try to slow down, focus on what’s in front of me, and keep my phone out of my sight.

• • •

My wife deactivated her Facebook account not too long ago, and she is infinitely happier. She didn’t want to be inundated
with a stream of updates from people whom she didn’t care about. Who cares if that girl from your second-grade class loves rice pudding or is excited to see what’s going to happen on this season of
SYTYCD
? She wanted to live in the present and the future, not the past. I envy that.

My wife’s good-bye to Facebook also benefited me; I’ve been relieved of the impulse to see what’s happening on her page since she doesn’t have one. In turn, while I link my Twitter and my Instagram to Facebook, I barely spend any time on it myself. I (almost) never peruse the pages of the people I once knew or dated. If we were both still active Facebook users, we would probably fight more, as we would question each other’s every move. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we have more time with each other.

In a
USA Today
interview, Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger admitted,
“I spend way too much time on the computer and not enough time playing the guitar . . . There’s an underlying problem of this screen life taking over all of your life.” The day after he read that, my best friend’s younger brother quit Facebook so he could “focus on the guitar.”

Arianna Huffington, who founded the political blog (and subsequent online empire) the
Huffington Post
, spoke out in 2010 about how our nation’s leaders are failing us because of their own overconnectedness to technology.
“Look at the bad decisions our leaders are making,” said Huffington. “I have to believe it’s because they are hyper-connected to technology, and not sufficiently connected to their own wisdom.” Huffington’s comment reminded me of
what Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his classic essay “Self-Reliance”:

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men—that is genius. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind . . . Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

Amen.

And since I’m apparently going full speed ahead on this tangent already, Ralph Waldo Emerson also said, “This time, like all times, is a good one, if we but know what to do with it.”

The technology space continues to grow with new apps and social media outlets every day. We, as humans, are growing with it but are struggling to find a way to use it without losing control, becoming compulsive, letting it affect our friendships, our relationships, and most importantly, ourselves. The answer is not to cancel our Instagram accounts, deactivate our Facebook profiles, and delete our Twitter handles. Instead, we must figure out how to use these facts of life as positive forces instead of damaging ones. And we have to figure out how to stay true to the “integrity of our own minds” and not get carried away by the stream of distraction and insecurity.

Writing this book didn’t cure me. Far from it; I am still addicted to my phone, social media, reality television, and
my DVR. But I have made some changes. I only allow myself to check my social media at work when I run down to grab my lunch or go to the bathroom. I keep my phone in my bag (or pocket) when I have dinners with friends or family. If I have a night at home, I try to spend at least an hour reading or writing before I turn on the television. One foot in front of the other. That’s what it’s all about.

We’ll reach our full potential when we figure out, as Emerson said, “what to do with it.” We won’t figure it out right away, but . . . baby steps. I have not yet unfriended my ex, but I did make the decision not to follow her on Instagram. I’m getting there.

I am deeply grateful to my editor and friend, Shannon Welch, for her confidence in this project and for standing by it from beginning to end. Without her, it truly would not have come to fruition. Shannon saw the strength in the early manuscript when even I did not and never stopped pushing me to make it everything it could be. Her attention to detail and ability to help me find my voice are things I will always be grateful for. I want to thank Scribner for believing in my manuscript and ultimately me; and also for putting an unparalleled, amazing, thoughtful, and insightful team behind it. Thank you to Nan Graham, who led the amazing team who published
Unfriending My Ex,
and to Roz Lippel, Kara Watson, Brian Belfiglio, Lauren Lavelle, Caitlin Dohrenwend, Elisa Rivlin, Hadley Walker, Tal Goretsky, and John Glynn.

I want to thank my loyal agent and friend Steve Troha for navigating the last four years with me and for introducing me to all of the right people to work with on this
project. I am eternally grateful for the constant support and enthusiasm of Lynn Goldberg, Katie Wainwright, Jeff Umbro, Megan Beatie, and Angela Baggetta. Thank you for believing in my book and helping me make it a success.

I want to thank all of the people I spoke to about the topic and the many experts, journalists, and other authors whom I consulted during the process. While there are many names in the footnotes that I am grateful for, special thanks go to Elias Aboujaoude, whose book
Virtually You
was a constant source of information and insight; William Powers, author of
Hamlet’s BlackBerry
, who met with me to discuss the topic and his findings; Gary Small, whose columns in
Psychology Today
and other work provided great statistics and information; and Keane Angle, whose interview provided insight from the digital and social marketing perspective. Thank you also to Henry David Thoreau and
Walden,
which got me through my digital detox and continues to change how I see the world around me. I, of course, want to thank every single person who filled out and participated in the hundreds of surveys that gave me a wealth of information about our generation and this topic. I am so grateful that people took the time to answer my sometimes very strange questions.

Thank you to the Brearley School in New York City for giving me the best education I can imagine and for teaching me how to be successful. Brearley gave me the confidence, strength, and hardworking nature to believe that I could succeed at all of my endeavors, even if it meant having two or sometimes three careers at one time. I want to especially
thank Mrs. Helaine Smith for her brilliance and for teaching me how to put my voice down onto a page.

Deserving her own start to a paragraph is my dear friend, Dr. Amy Wicker, who, as a doctor of clinical psychology, was a brilliant and incredibly helpful source of knowledge from the human behavioral perspective. On a personal note, I want to thank Amy for being an amazingly loyal friend, who never stopped asking about this project and who has been my sounding board for essentially everything in the past ten years. I am also incredibly grateful for the support of Ken Auletta, Caprice Crane, Jean Vallely Graham, Chris Hardwick, Debbie McEneaney, Roger Rosenblatt, and Alyssa Shelasky who believed in my manuscript and were some of the first people to read it and offer feedback. Thank you to David Silber and everyone at Citigroup for being supportive and understanding of my somewhat double life and to my colleagues for buying this book (you guys did buy the book, right?). I want to thank my friends and colleagues whose lives were constant inspiration and insight, and thank you to
Beverly Hills, 90210
for letting me use the names of their characters to protect the identities of some of my most device-addicted real-life characters. Special thanks to Judgie Graham, Molly Greenberg, Jessica Palmer, Despina Nevells, Keryn Limmer, Sarah Maslin Nir, Peter McEneaney, Emily Calcagnino, Julie Potash Slavin, Randy Slavin, Megan Kelly, Kyle Gilroy, Josephine Bradlee, Nina Braddock, Marina Thompson, Christine Cowan, Chris Sullivan, Erin Reiss Silbert, Lysee Webb, Madison Vain, and the MTV News team. I suppose I should also thank my various
exes: without them, this book would be a lot shorter and without a title.