Disconnecting from Technology Quotes

We are too connected. There's noise in our heads all the time.

I like to [unplug] and enjoy being a human.

If I could throw my phone away, I would probably do it. It's always on silent, and I don't like when it rings and people are calling. We could live without those things in the past when we just had a phone on the street somewhere, on the corner or at the house. I have no interest in telling all the people what I do every day and where I am.

I don't have a BlackBerry or whatever you call it. And there is something to be said for being isolated and out of phone range, because you can fall into a habit to such a degree that you don't even realise that you've lost something: silence.

I don't have a television set up [in the mountains], of course, but I find I don't miss it at all, or the newspaper. I've sneaked a radio into by cabin, but I find I turn it on very rarely.

I packed my bags and I moved to Bangkok, Thailand. I spent a year there like completely isolated, no Wi-Fi.

When I'm at our house in France I totally cut myself off from the rest of the world. I never have to listen to phones ringing and that's because - and Vanessa would confirm this - phones are banned from the house. We have a beautiful life and I feel that spending time in France has just calmed me down and made me stop worrying about things which aren't really important.

We are monumentally distracted by a pervasive technological culture that appears to have a life of its own, one that insists on our full attention, continually seducing us and pulling us away from the opportunity to experience directly the true meaning of our own lives.

Once a quarter, Amy and I go off the grid and totally disconnect. It's totally doable and it will change your life.

Instagram was the first one I jumped on to, and I realized it's more about checking in with your friends and seeing what they're doing. It's weird how it's turned into something that's so prominent in our everyday lives. We're all hooked to our phone because of social media, and it's great that we can stay connected, but at the same time, I like frolicking outside and not looking at my phone. So it's hard to find that balance.

Staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.

Taking a digital holiday is a great way to start bringing balance back into your life.

The truth is, almost nobody wants to experience real nature. What people want is to spend a week or two in a cabin in the woods, with screens on the windows. They want a simplified life for a while, without all their stuff. Or a nice river rafting trip for a few days, with somebody else doing the cooking. Nobody wants to go back to nature in any real way, and nobody does. It's all talk.

The more there is, the less I want. The more man flies to the moon, the more I want to look at a tree.

People have to understand that they can reject technology. They can turn off their cell phone. They can stop looking at their e-mail. It's there if they want it. It's not being forced on them.

There are few times that I feel more at peace, more in tune, more Zen, if you will, than when I force myself to unplug.

Being alone with yourself is increasingly unpopular.

It's so hard for people to give up their cell phones or their ideas of being connected to everything all the time in order to get an immersive experience. That's the best way to make art. It's almost like you have to treat it like you're going into a submarine, and Noah Baumbach totally agrees with that. There's not a real other life that happens outside of the movie while it's being shot, which I like.

[W]e spend so much time staring at our phones and screens, texting and tweeting about how busy we are, we no longer have the time to consume any primary material. We rely instead on the casual observations of our “friends” or the people we “follow” […].

When I'm playing with circular saws, I'm offline (though often listening to podcasts) and when I sit in the cabin to read or write, it's wonderful to be offline for a few hours at a time.

You really get caught up in this system of the world - the Instagram world, society - we really get caught up in what our friends want and what our jobs want. I think the priority in life is to feel secure and safe and solid, truly. Just feeling good, just being okay with sitting alone. I think that's a big thing people need to realize and get used to that it's okay to be alone. It's good to be alone, and you need to be able to sit by yourself and just be peaceful and silent, and learn to read a book again; learn to just be. It's hard to be when you are so used to static input.

It's more for me as with going into a forest: if you sit quietly for a long time, the life around you emerges. As the world grows ever more clamorous, my hunger for silence steepens. I unplug the landline.

You almost wish you could turn off the COMM and just appreciate the deafening quiet.

The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug.

The thing I longed for as a teenager is now an object of neglect and scorn. I've grown to hate my telephone.