At 8:30 pm on a Friday, I boarded a coach bus straight to Hancock, New Hampshire for a weekend retreat camp. The camp was my first training session for my role as a Student Advisor of Orientation this summer.
As we drove further and further away from the twinkling lights of Boston, through the surrounding suburbs and eventually thick evergreen trees, I looked out the window and up at the twinkling stars. This weekend was one for rejuvenation.
For the next hour and a half, I was slipping in and out of napping–catching up from sleep deprivation during the week–and feverishly texting my friends because I felt bad for missing weekend plans and getting to spend time with them.
When we arrived at our destination, it was around 10:00 pm. I stepped out from the bus and instantly breathed in the crisp, fresh air. I looked up at the sky, free from the glowing lights of the city. My favorite part, however, was falling asleep with the sweet sound of silence. I almost forgot what it felt like to fall asleep without the faded sound of cars whizzing by in the late hours of the night.
From the moment my alarm went off at 6:30 am on Saturday morning to the moment I boarded the bus to go back to Boston at 9:30 pm, I didn’t spend a second scrolling through Instagram or responding to texts. For the first time, each of my interactions that day was face-to-face.
Throughout the day, we all talked about how weird and unnatural it was for us to not be able to check Instagram or Snapchat. We were in the middle of nowhere, which meant no cell service or Wi-Fi. Some people even left their phones in their cabin all day.
When it came time to board the coach bus once again and drive back to Boston, I found myself feeling–surprisingly–anxious. I didn’t want to have to respond to all the messages I missed, or scroll through emails. I felt obligated to post a story with the only photo (no, quite literally, the only one) I took that weekend to update my followers as to why I’d been MIA for one day.
I came to this conclusion: Our societal surroundings make it all too easy for us to succumb to the ease of spending every free moment scrolling on a touchscreen. You might be thinking, duh. But wait, I have more to expand upon. As a result, the quality, in-person connections are so often lost in our digital age. I wish there was a way that those digital interactions could hold the same genuineness that my interactions this past weekend at retreat camp had, but I’m not sure the way to go about that.
I think one way this training camp impacted me, besides teaching me all the know-alls of being a Student Advisor this summer, was by inspiring me to live more in the moment. I was inspired to look up more. As a person who spends a lot of time on social media, and a person who builds a lot of confidence through a social media platform, I’m actively trying to unplug more. Although technology increases our opportunities to connect and network with others, I couldn’t imagine a world where we lost the power of human interaction, face-to-face.
If you get the chance to, I highly recommend spending at least a day or two camping somewhere without service, to rejuvenate yourself from the stresses of school!Â
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