A Partial Retreat: Taking a few steps back for ourselves

I moved back to Tokyo in early July. It turned out to be the hottest summer ever. 
 
Most days rose above 34ºC with unrelenting humidity. Even summer thunderstorms, more frequent and intense than ever, offered none of the typical post shower relief from the heat, merely adding moisture to the already laden air blanketing the city.
 
Being a freelancer, I spent most of my days confined to my air-conditioned apartment sitting in front of a (digital) screen filled with open (browser) windows. Throughout the day I toggle between my laptop and smartphone for work, while taking far too many social media breaks.
 
I’m not complaining. We’re lucky to have these modern tech luxuries. Especially in an age where our ‘homes’ and ‘offices’ are often the same place and we are less bound by country, distance, timezone. This connectivity provides us geographical freedom, pleasant, instant interactions with friends and family around the world, comic relief from silly memes, and ability to keep up on current affairs.
 
Despite the benefits, underneath all the stimulation and information, recently I feel a subtle and increasing negativity — like an itch or irritation — lingering in the background.
 
I think one of the main reasons is that we have less-and-less control over what we see online.
 
The more social media we use, the more we are subjected to content we would have preferred not to see: garish ads for irrelevant products, increasingly uncanny AI generated images, unprompted audio clashing with my own personal soundtrack, and the most unacceptable of all, horrific scenes of violence and war — images of human suffering shuffled between all the selfies, ads, and sunsets — a truly dystopian juxtaposition.
 
Even if we ignore (or become numb to) the worst of it, some of it gets into the deepest recesses of our minds.
 
It must.
 
For me, this barrage of unsolicited images began to affect my baseline mood — it become a background stressor and a work distraction. I tried curating my feed. Spending my precious time training tech giant algorithms (for free!) to try to get the user experience I desired.
 
Even with the many controls we’re given, we can never predict what we might see when we open an app and start scrolling. And I think we’ve all experienced the uncomfortable choice to hide or unfollow friends, family, and colleagues who post content we’d rather not see.

For those of us who work in media, or jobs that require online interactions to fully disconnect would be a costly economic decision. Indeed, most of us cannot quit the internet, but, we can retreat from it a bit.
 
So that’s what I decided to do.
 
By late August, with the heat showing no sign of easing up, I had reached my limit of being cooped up in an air-conditioned apartment while being force-fed content. I decided to get out of town to a quieter, cooler, and more scenic location. I hopped a Shinkansen down to Kagawa, Japan’s smallest prefecture, which is part of the island of Shikoku and fronts the Setouchi inland sea.

 
Kagawa is home to some of Japan’s best weather and a “Mediterranean”climate. It’s a place well known for udon, an 88 temple Buddhist pilgrimage, fishing, growing citrus and even olives. The perfect place to make an earnest attempt at Punkt.’s Digital Detox. Because I had the MP02, a quick sim card swap meant I wouldn’t have to worry about missing a call from a loved one or work emergency if they really needed me during the day.
 
I first visited Kagawa in 2016 for a project to help promote their local food culture abroad. The local people I met were kind, leisurely, and welcoming in a way different to more urban areas in Japan. The scenic beauty and rhythm of the inland sea provided a calming metronome to keep time of the cool breeze. I keep coming back. Using it as a sort of fortress of solitude when Tokyo begins to overstimulate — or overheat.
 
On this trip, I decided to leave my smartphone in my room anytime I left the apartment and use my laptop only for any work that cropped up. I would spend each day, walking along the seaside of Chichibugahama (chee-chee-boo-gah-hama) beach. I would take more intentional photographs using my camera, rather than simple snapshots and vertical videos with my smartphone. I would not think about the algorithmic chaos of the internet once my foot was out of the front door each day. 
 
The unobtrusive size of the MP02 meant I could barely feel it in my pocket at all. Zero temptation. No tactile reminder of the internet lurking out there in the ether.
 
I quickly recalled my ability to focus on the five senses and the rhythm of my footsteps along the seaside. I waited for photographs to reveal themselves as I walked. I realized how much the smartphone and the shift to video on sites like TikTok and Instagram has induced a sort of ‘split concentration’ in me. Rather than just recognizing a scene and taking a photograph, I now find myself debating whether that scene might not be better as a video for Instagram stories or a video for future assignments.
 
That trepidation is the opposite of what a photographer wants while experiencing a ‘decisive moment’, if such a concept still exists. Not having those newer options was, in fact, relieving. I was simply walking and taking photos. Much as I did before the smartphone and social media began to confuse things and incentivize video.
 
When I returned to the apartment after these daily sojourns I found I was more interested in seeing the few images I had taken for my own enjoyment. I wasn’t rushing to to share a 15-second clip with friends and family who can’t travel to such far-off places, or less nobly, for editors who may see it and come calling with an assignment. I shared far less. This was a return to a more internalized focus  on photography and on the joy of walking.
 
And because I was still accessible via the MP02, there was none of the anxiety that can accompany a full disconnect. Less reason to run immediately to check my smartphone for messages. ‘They know how to reach me,’ I found myself thinking. 

While editing the photos I took, the sensory experience that accompanied them was clearer as well. I recalled a more detailed and vibrant memory of the moments surrounding the I pressed the shutter:
 
Two crows flying overhead chasing a cackling Black Kite away from their nest. Distant voices of families playing in the mirrored tide pools. White egrets standing like ghostly sentinels as they hunt. Whitecaps and reflected light dazzling my vision on the undulating surface of the inland sea. The purple and orange hues saturating the skies as the sun dipped behind the horizon.  
 
I didn’t photograph these descriptions or record them in short clips for my Instagram feed. I simply took them in. Which is, perhaps, why I am now able to write about them in more vibrant detail than I might have had I been checking my smartphone after recording them. 
 
We are indeed lucky to live in a world of technological marvels and constant connection. The omnipresence of that connection makes it more important than ever for us to take control and set aside time for ourselves in real life.
 
To choose to immerse ourselves in the richness of our sensory experience, rather than constantly scanning it for shareable content. The desire to share and socialize is innate in human beings and makes us who we are. The internet makes that easier than ever. But we need not give our precious free time away in real time to be consumed and commodified.
 
We should make efforts to retreat physically as well as from that feeling of obligatory and near-constant stimulation and interaction.
 
Sometimes, it’s better to observe than participate. 

Lance H.