T H E NE W-Y EA R DIGI TAL DE TOX

COSM OPOLITAN CONT RAC T Signed:

This is an agreement made by A Person Quitting The Grid For A Bit, __________________ (hereafter referred to as The Offline)

1 LOGGING OFF

The Offline will announce on all digital platforms that she is going to be off social media for January and “trying to reconnect with the world around her”. Unfortunately the world around her will be too busy not drinking, going vegan and taking up knitting to notice. The Offline will leave it a few hours before deleting her apps, just in case anyone messages to say how much they will miss her #content. They won’t. She will quickly discover she gets incredibly bored on the toilet.

2 NODDING OFF

The Offline will set her new retro alarm clock and leave her phone in the kitchen so she can practise good “sleep hygiene”. She will immediately pick up her phone to Instagram the retro alarm clock, then remember she can’t. She will then pick up her phone to tweet about almost Instagramming the alarm clock. The Offline will go to bed at 10pm to unwind with a good book. She will fall asleep at 10.08pm with the book on her face.

3 LEANING IN

The Offline will sleep through her alarm because her brain didn’t recognise the retro noise. She will read a newspaper on her morning commute, which will go well until she tries to “zoom in” on the page. At work, The Offline will discover her meeting has been moved to a different location. She will turn up late, sweaty and covered in newsprint smudges, explaining that she missed the email as she’s gone “off-grid”. Her boss will quietly ask if this means she is living in the woods.

4 ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR

Realising that she has missed three Facebook birthdays, two baby announcements, five celebrity scandals and an especially juicy breakup, The Offline will attempt to nurture her friendships the analogue way: ringing people up for a spontaneous chat! This will not go down well. Every friend will ignore her call, then text two minutes later to check if she is in grave danger. Or engaged.

5 POWERING DOWN

To make the most of her screenfree lunch hour, The Offline will start a mindfulness journal. She will buy an overpriced notebook and a fountain pen to jot down poetic observations about the world. By the end of the week she will have written a shopping list and a haiku about a Pret salad. The Offline will also take up painting as a hobby but grow irritated when she can’t simply blur out mistakes with a handy filter.

6 ZONING OUT

When The Offline sees her friends face-toface after a week of digital detoxing, she will greet them emotionally, as though she is coming back from war. The friends will keep laughing about something hilarious that happened on WhatsApp without her. “You must feel so zen! You probably don’t even miss it, do you?” they will all say. “Oh, totally,” The Offline will reply, absent-mindedly trying to scroll down a beer mat. “So very zen.”