As others have noted, the notion that the author can’t achieve his desired silence by simply turning off his phone because it it, somehow, still there and clamoring for attention, is absolutely ridiculous.
8
I live in a tiny, battered town which is, as we say, 12.5mi past nowhere. People ask me, "What do you do? Don't you get bored?" I shrug. If you have satellite you can get TV. The radio stations don't get here though if you're up late you can hear Chicago and Denver. Kinda like when I was a kid in the high Tarryall. (And no, haven't owned a TV in a long, long time.)
Yes, we have a sort of cell service though it depends on where you are in town. You don't have to go far out into the desert and there's nothing. Yes, we have Internet though we - with some accuracy - say "We get our Net via a barbwire fence." Not much exaggeration.
So what do we do here beyond the pulse? Sit on the front porch in total darkness and listen. If you slide a bit out of town you can see 6th order stars. Do I miss Walmart, Bashas, Edwards multiplex, La Encantada mall, and oh yeah, all those bars? Nope? Dark, quiet. As peaceable as my soul is willing to be. And no, you aren't invited.
30
How can we recognize the need to protect something so precious and valuable when the thing is actually the absence of something?
10
The article was ok. The photos are outstanding. Especially the one of a street in Cass.
7
No smartphone.
Lots of very chatty visits to sweetest general store on planet.
How we feel connected, that and a land-line for long unfuzzy chats.
Which is not to say we don’t want the internet, we love it and it is important, but everything in the right proportion.
3
Ohh, GREAT BW documentary-style photographs, too, by Damon Winter, nicely placed in a Hasselblad frame, complete with notches, unless UNLESS Damon actually used a Hasselblad?
Get Damon on the on-line, please!
6
All those lovely unknown spots, when spotlighted by national media, begin to die a public death, as the stampede by the hungry multitudes, eager to find quiet and the cure from overpopulation, are set off like the Kansas Land Rush. I know because my hometown -- which claimed me at birth -- was simple and sustainable until a crummy little magazine called it the most livable place in America and now it is like all the rest of America, another city to escape from, and the spin off from that is the steady decimation of its surrounding countryside, including where my family took refuge from the deluge of invaders.
10
80% of America is undeveloped, 90% west of the Mississippi and virtually 100% in Alaska.
4
Thank your for this. The Wise Ones know the truth:
"The choice of solitude is not so much a rejection of community as a recognition that certain experiences and truths are so alien to ordinary consciousness that the individual must withdraw in order to experience them."
- ????
“I should stop talking now.
Having a voice separates me from All That Is.”
- “Lamb”, Christopher Moore
"The quieter you become, the more you can hear."
- Ram Dass
"Be still, and know that I am."
- Psalm 46:10
"Ordinary men hate solitude.
But the master makes use of it,
Embracing his aloneness, realizing
He is one with the whole universe."
- Tao To Ching
9
Too many people.
Way, way, way too many people.
14
At least there's one beautiful place the Instagram mob can't destroy.
4
Clear sky, calm waters and no mobile service may be had at Mt. Carleton Provincial Park, New Brunswick, Canada.
3
Ms. Kennedy, your phone has an off switch, in case you are not aware of it. It works!
6
This writer's addiction & the constant mentions of it ( "itching fingers / always thinking about it in the back of your mind/etc) is actually quite sad & a reminder of just how much everyone has lost & what what willing pawns everyone have become.
Yes, I have a Cell phone. But it is a phone, nothing more. About the only calls I ever get anymore are Phishing calls. I can't imagine for the life of me why I would ever watch a movie on a tiny phone screen. The quality of MP3's stink. Even as a teenager Video games were a massive bore. So, like I said - to me -a phone is just a phone. No need to
clutch it in my hand everywhere I go or get the so-called "Hunchback".
6
You write:
"The off-grid places are disappearing. And that’s as it should be. We must wire up rural America; cell service is now a utility almost as essential as electricity or heat. "
Aiyeeeee!
This is Genesis 1:28 stuff: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it".
That was a long ago. We fulfilled that assignment. For our trouble, we are looking forward to flooded cities, changed weather, heat prostration, no polar bears, no sea ice, no icecap Greenland, and God knows what else.
What's wrong with this country? The world has too many people. Each country needs to cut back. And yet, my usually sane relatives are saying that we have to let in millions of immigrants to fill our vacant land.
Not to mention, to exploit for cushy retirements.
I live 20 miles north of Green Bank. I'm astounded that you say this AFTER visiting us. For yuppies, the cell phone is crucial: business, foodie reservations, Mt. Everest.
I came here to escape all that. I've canceled my cell phone service, and forget to look at my answering machine.
Blessèd peace.
Why not some pluralism? Leave some of the boonies alone. Why do the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia have to have the appurtenances of the Potomac Lowlands of DC?
"We must wire up rural America".
You live 10 hours, 600 miles, away. Why on earth do you care what we do? I don't care what you do to what remains of Massachusetts.
Don't you find a touch of totalitarianism in your assertion?
7
Confusing piece. You find this superb, isolated place to find peace and quiet - then spread the word about it around the world in the New York Times?
The word "idiot" is derived from ancient Greece.
An idiot then was an isolationist who didn't care about democracy and being an involved citizen.
A lot of these "disconnected" types remind me of that, and make me think they are inadvertently helping Trump.
I enjoy the great outdoors as much as anyone - I own a home in the scenic White Mountains of northern New Hampshire. But I have wifi there.
The remote, no signal woods are all around me when needed.
2
I got a laugh out of the fact that a Dollar general is in such a remote place.
Thats what we need to wean off as well!!
2
So will you please stop identifying the few remaining places where people can actually be off-grid? Please?
14
@John Jabo. I have had a lifelong interest in maps like others commenting here. In the past, GPS would have saved a lot of friction and discord if I had it when trying to drive a complicated route with a directionality challenged navigator who couldn't read a map to save her life.
1
What’s hardest to explain to those wedded to tech is that presence/absence is not a discrete event (on or off). Long-term absence changes how you think and act. Mindfulness is critical — impulsivity is starved. You can’t Google, so you remember more and that impacts how you reflect on things. Thinking becomes deeper, tentacles grow where once there was a single stub. The first thought into one’s mind isn’t swung forth with gusto, but tabled until the second thought comes along for comparison. In short, it shapes you in ways that are subtle but cumulative. Of course, you have to value that to make it worthwhile.
11
Beautiful piece. I'm originally from WV so I always enjoy reading great journalism about this part of our country. Although I live in Los Angeles now, I long for and crave solitude at times. Thank you for reminding us to keep looking...Your article made me consider visiting Green Bank!
8
This is one of the things I miss the most from my younger years...the ability to find solace in quietude. It was a luxurious freedom from the demanding hustle of daily life. To go where quiet was absolute, except for what the natural world gently whispered.
Those of us who are old enough to know the difference between that past world and this present one may feel as I do: that the increase of violence and aggression in the present world are symptoms of a new form of social illness...resulting from the incessant onslaught of messaging that prevents quiet reflection.
7
Its clear by some of the posts that many people don't even know what the author is talking about. And have already forgotten what are the benefits of true quiet.
Its not about simply being free of interruptions to stare off into a vista - which by the way is awesome! But instead to be alone, with ones thoughts - good or bad, or in between. To not have the device laying around, even out of arms reach, with that niggling thought that it might chirp, hoping it will chirp (new daters know that effect) or very often wishing it won't chirp! (those whose boss, or family cant seem to chew food with out assistance)
Its that whatever is out there waiting for you to deal with - work, school, relationships, etc - will wait till you are in direct contact. And that nothing bad will happen during that wait.
Its the freedom to be free of whatever, when you're not in direct contact with it, or them. That's a huge thing. You can walk around the world, unencumbered, free of others who can be too needy or incapable of thinking and doing on their own.
IMO, the whole rise and forced ubiquitous nature of these personal devices is making people incapable of figuring things out on their own. Not just that they can Google X or Y - but that they have to have input on everything they do. They need to be in "committee" all the time. Clucking about this or that, but doing nothing.
Good input is a wonderful thing. But lets face it...most of what most people do on their phones is grade-A nonsense.
17
This is a very valuable article; thank you, NYT and authors.
One feature of the anthropogenic mass extinction event we're creating is destruction of natural soundscapes.
We're the noisiest invasive species ever; our noise is a terrible disruptor of native animal communications and security.
Ocean noise from ships, "resource" exploitation, boats, jet skis, military testing and other sources sabotages echolocation and other communications strategies marine mammals depend on.
Leaf blowers, cars with enhanced-noise exhaust pipes, and many other loud rudeness scares and otherwise harms native wildlife.
Humans too are tormented by noise pollution.
I had to buy decibel-dampening ear muffs used by gun shooters, just so I could get to sleep, or sit in my back yard in the increasingly urbanized soundscape of sirens, music, motor vehicles, people yelling, etc.
Peace and quiet is peaceful and healthy.
As with many other beautiful things, our species is stealing it away.
13
Just turn devices off. But the idea that man-made "things" are reducing untouched landscape ... that's something to ponder at length.
2
Yes....
but it will very quiet when the ……. (fill in the blank) war hit the electric grid.
Remember the recent great North-east blackout.. Of course there were back-up generators but that day all cellphones went dead. (However, pre-Fios , landline telephones still worked!! Thanks Verizon -- anything for the $.)
West Virginia is a rugged and beautiful state.
1
Finding real solitude? Ye gads, much ado about nothing. Just turn it all off, smart phone, computer, TV. So absolutely perfect and so absolutely quiet especially in the months when one does not need AC or heat. No hum, no clicking noise. Great for listening to the early morning bird song or to the crickets at night.
My phone is always nearby in case i need medical care. I am a senior citizen and i do have medical issues. Help can be here in less than 5 minutes. The best of both worlds. We are so fortunate in so many ways.
7
Stunning Photography in this story! Really major league!
13
Excellent article and predictably of the highest quality. Pagan Kennedy brought me into the quiet of the landscape and into the quiet of my own mind. The rhetorical (and not so rhetorical) issues that were raised were provocatively raised were equally disquieting. Daman Winter’s photographs with (solarized?) film provided a visual gateway into the quiet zone; a perfect complement to the tone of the article. In a sharply politicized world of rude shouting, tweeting, and total immersion in technology; we need moments of reflection. Thanks to the NYT and its staff for providing a meaningful one!
12
John Doe's comment is the rational one, yet there is something more subtle and profound here that tugs at me, draws me to the idea of solitude and focus on the moment and in my physical surroundings, without an on/off button. Without that security. Being "lost", and actually savoring that feeling. There is a freedom in that experience.
There is some irony here as well, insofar as much of humanity now lives without all our technology and abundance, cooking on three stone fires, focused more on survival day to day, and wanting all of this stuff we have.
1
Enjoyed the article. Personally, love quiet and I’m grateful to live on a rural island that is relatively quiet. I soak up the quiet all the time, it’s soothing and rare. Somehow, we have forgotten or refuse to take personal responsibility for the cell phone invasion in our lives. All cell phones have an on-off feature, even a “do not disturb” feature, people need to us it rather than complain about cellphones which are lifesavers in many respects! We are not slaves to technology, folks, we use technology, we are in control. And sure there’s folks, especially children who are addicted however in the case of children or teenagers, it’s up to parents to regulate usage and teach responsible use.
And...I’m always amazed how few people walk through our parks and public forests. There’s a beautiful state park near our home, on any given day we are the only ones using the trails! GO OUTSIDE, into the woods, walk in nature wherever you can access it, it’s good for your health, mental and spiritual! And please....silence your cellphones when you are walking outside, thank you!
3
The literal “all or nothing” dichotomy described in the article wonderfully illustrates the paradox of modern life in the USA and in places like it. I’ve not had the experience of seeking freedom from the ubiquitous internet, but I have had an analogous experience: getting away from light pollution to see the night sky in all its natural glory. Living and growing up near NYC, I realized recently that I had never seen the Milky Way except in photos. I found out (yes through the internet) about the existence of a “dark sky park” about a three-hour drive away, in Cherry Springs PA. Again with the help of the internet, I chose a clear evening and got to the park with my daughter to see the actual Milky Way in vivid reality, and a meteor shower - and the International Space Station crossing the night sky. Natural wonders, with a side of man-made technological wizardry, all normally and increasingly obscured from view. As much as I am impressed by the brilliance of the NYC skyline and the 24/7 energy of places like Times Square, I was humbly amazed by the vastness and diversity that I could see in just a piece of the natural unobstructed sky and somehow also quite pleased that we are pursuing exploration of the wonders that are out there, while preserving at least some opportunities to experience the unmodernized state of the world.
4
Coming from Arizona, there is a lot of places around here without cell service. It will be a while, if ever, before cell service is ubiquitous in this part of the country.
2
This exquisite article has made my day. Thank you mr. Kennedy.
I was struck by many things, but especially the fact that the artful photographs were produced by a mechanical camera. I know nothing about cameras but have to wonder what it is, that expensive, electronic cameras provide.
10
The article brings an exotic concept of ultimate quiet to noise challenged urbanites. While interesting, it is a bit overdone.
I live on 6 acres in the middle of the country. Behind my property are many more acres of green zone and a creek. Just 20 minutes from a great Sushi restaurant and all of the urban conveniences of a University town. A single gate regional airport is 20 minutes away. I travel to London faster than most people from large cities.
This affords me all the quiet (as well as lack of neighbors) that is truly useful, unless one has real psychological hang ups about civilization. Now and then when the wind blows from just the right direction I can hear tires riding on a pavement on a road which is about a mile away. Speaking of the wind - the thing that you realize that world is naturally not quiet. Wind, creek, birds, frogs, etc. provide a fairly pleasant and constant background as I sit on the porch and exchange emails and messages with London and San Francisco.
Point being this - you don't have to go the extreme length to experience 99% of the benefit a normal person would look for from a quiet place.
4
I love quiet. Environments with no machine made sounds. One finds oneself melting into a more calm state even when your not aware of it.
In the many years I lived in NYC, I wore earplugs 75% of time on the streets. I came to the hypothesis that the reason people walked so fast in NY was that they were constantly and subconsciously fleeing all the loud noises.
Now, at the moment, living in a place that visually looks like a verdant forest with hundreds of feet or more between homesteads it is anything but quiet.
Weekend warriors on motorcycles tuned to be as loud as possible go by every few minutes. And then the constant droning of lawnmowers, leaf blowers and weed wackers make it seem like living in an industrial zone.
Oh, and did I mention being under multiple flight paths?
8
Try something, leave you cell phone at home, go to your favorite spot. Be there. This may take some time. . . to stop worrying about this or that, and to just sit there and appreciate your surroundings, to be fully present in this moment, to see what is real, right now. It doesn't cost anything and its good for your soul.
2
I find life quieter than in the 1980s. Only the recent despicable re-emergence of boom boxes has challenged that. Cars are quieter, car alarms are largely silenced, construction is quieter, people use earphones/earbuds constantly. Cellphones have not gone away, but people are somewhat more considerate about using them. But loudness does persist, particularly in music, and its steady creep into classical music is most unwelcome.
1
This story about electromagnetic silence is accompanied by unusually fine news photography. The images are stunning; the detail is very fine on the screen of my tablet. I’m sure they will make excellent large prints. Full marks to the team that made this piece.
8
There is a lot of romanticism going on here. Being "lost" is fun when you know you can turn on Google Maps and be "found" whenever you want. Not having a cell phone and being alone is great, until you have an accident and need immediate help. Having areas without cellphone coverage is great, until you're truly lost in the mountains--I know of 3 such people who have lose their lives. This town is an anachronism; and it is beautiful in it's own way. When I was in the back of our farm, and rolled down a hill and broke my ankle, I'm glad I had Verizon coverage.
3
All this nostalgia about being off the grid is fine for those with choices. As for me, the internet ends about a block from my house. Yes we have cellphone service - depending upon where you stand in the house, and we have internet "service" via satellite. But the latter is a poor imitation of true broad bandwidth communications. If you are trying to run a modern business or farm in rural or even semi-rural America, this lack of connectivity is a true economic disadvantage.
4
I love relative quiet, and living on a suburban "farm" I have it. As a physician, however, I could not do my work without modern communications. Nor could I do the nonprofit work I do for the local land trust, preserving open space in perpetuity. The past is for those who lived in the past (as many wise souls have written).
3
How quickly we approach Huxley's Brave New World. Remember the passage where the protagonist goes to the Indian Reservation in New Mexico and marvels how things once were.
6
People divide into subgroups, in my case based on preference for solitude.
I own a smart phone that I use only for its camera: Its never been connected to a network.
When I tell people this, the most common reply is that I need one because my car might break down, on a lonely road, in the middle of the night, in the middle of winter.
All of a sudden they're insurance salesmen.
I suppose such a scenario is possible, but what are the odds?
In any event, I prefer my own company and the peace that quiet brings.
A cellphone is antithetical to that.
I'm not interested in being disturbed all the time by some bored individual, calling just to ask "Where you at, whachoo doin?"
4
Given what the statistics are saying about children who are on their cell phones constantly, THEIR cell phones do them great harm. The cells have been connected to bad school grades, do not teach them how to actually talk to people face-to-face, create adults who are not comfortable without the emotional support of device in-hand, etc., etc. Life can be more convenient for adults with cell phones in their worlds, but kids' use needs to be well supervised.
5
what a gorgeous essay! Gorgeously illustrated. Thank you so very much!!
9
SpaceX and other commercial operators are lowering the cost of orbital access to the point that, on one hand, makes it easy to blanket the planet with 12,000 WiFi satellites (Star-link), but on the other hand, makes putting heavy payloads on the moon a less than $100M launch price.
A radio telescope on the far side of the moon has been discussed. The moon makes an outstanding RF shield from the Earth, with the far side always facing away from the Earth, and no satellites that pass overhead broadcasting signals.
A radio observatory on the moon would not need to support wind load, and with 1/6th the gravity, would be a much lighter structure. Of course, servicing and upkeep would be very difficult.
I'm just not sure in terms of science priority, looking at programs like the James Webb Space telescope, vs detecting gravity waves, vs probes to other planets and moons, if radio astronomy is the best use of limited big-astronomy funding.
1
I also find myself having experiences or seeing beautiful things — and then almost immediately thinking about what I might post about it on Instagram. I hate this. When I was fifteen, though, I remember spending a beach vacation with my friends journaling madly every night, sacrificing time with the people I was enjoying in order to record and transform the experience of their company. I rushed through every day because I couldn’t wait to recollect it in tranquility; it was as if the experiences became real only when I recorded them. Is there really such a big difference between my analog journaling compulsion and the desire to post on social media? I don’t think so, at the root, but one obvious difference in form is the social element. My journals were just for me; my Instagram account, not so much, even though my followers are very few.
1
Good point.
I lived in India for 5 months when I was 27, and in that time I made exactly one phone call, watched no TV and listened to no radio. The whole world has seemed screamingly loud ever since then.
5
As another reader commented, I wanted to post this article on my disused facebook page, to send it out to others to say, Ha! Get offline everyone. Then I remembered the reason my page is lying dormant is because I wanted to reclaim another portion of my brain from the autoreply fray and madness of our world. So I will not be "sharing" this article but will talk about it and encourage others, especially parents, to help our young people know the beauty of having human connections, nature connections, and an inner life all your own.
3
I am 49. I grew up without internet or cell phones. The longer I live the clearer it becomes to me just how profoundly dystopian and isolating it was, confining my whole world and mental picture of the world to the few people (and books, bless books) I could access physically. I would dearly love for no child ever to have to grow up in that way again. I don't see the point of romanticizing and glorifying that era any more than the era before we could count on clean hot and cold running water in every building. If you find it tedious, simply turn it off and go for a walk without it. This article describes a solution without a problem.
If we wanted to discuss the problem of being on permanent call to the office, that's valid, but that's a cultural problem more than a technology one, you aren't going to solve it by treating digitally dead spaces like nature reserves.
9
@LQ I like that, "this article describes a solution without a problem"
1
We spend six hours each day online. Of the top 50 sites, none are devoted to the arts, science, foreign policy, economics, philosophy, mathematics, psychology, physics, astronomy or history. Internet time is, to an extraordinary extent, intellectual dead time.
9
I live in Lansing, New York, in a log house located in a wooded area 12 miles from Cornell University. It’s hardly the wilderness, yet our ATT cell and internet reception derives from a tower whose location does not provide adequate coverage to our home. ATT tells me there is nothing they can do. Spectrum, a cable company that services our area, told us it would cost 12,000 dollars to run a 600-foot cable to our home, adding the company would pick up 3,000 dollars of the cost, (after which monthly service fees in the hundreds of dollars would apply). Having a “reception-free” zone is appropriate for scientific purposes. Not providing critical services to people in less populated areas, be they rural, semi-rural, or urban, is unacceptable. Remediating it by charging the customer for the infrastructure is beyond unacceptable.
3
Electronic pollution is just like light pollution. It's another way for humans to get further from environment and what we evolved in. When you look at the mega cities that are now becoming the norm you realize we are devolving into a society that make rats look like rugged individualists. Many people now, never see the night sky, never have any solitude outside of the bathroom stall and are never disconnected from the Internet (and as we know from 2016, this doesn't mean they are informed about anything). As the nyts has reported we are transforming the earth to support billions more people at the expense of almost every other species. We are out of balance, as the movie "koyaanisqatsi" so perfectly portrayed.
10
I'll never forget Damon Winter's photographs of the Trump juggernaut of 2015-16. Here, we see that he can trace the search for humane peace as well as a rampaging lust for vengeance. Who can ignore the range of this species when he sees it?
Really captivating photographs... and engaging writing to complement them. Thank you...
10
I decided to find a quiet zone, and was left just with the sound of my tinnitus. Oh, well.
3
@Rahn . Here in Western Maine the winds wake us and lull us. I too wish to know true quiet but alas the dreaded tinnitus invades.
2
To a large extent, technological quiet is a matter of choice. Don't want to be distracted by your phone or computer or television? Then put them down or away, or turn them off.
I am more concerned about auditory quiet, or the lack thereof. Auditory quiet is getting harder to achieve, even in areas that are remote. Man-made sounds have become more and more ubiquitous and intrusive in our daily lives. Not surprising given that human population has increased by 2.5 times during my lifetime, along with the capacity to travel just about anywhere with relative ease.
3
A friend of mine in Olympia, WA just moved, and she has no Internet or phone service at the new house. She has to drive out of the the area in order to get any service. And, this is just a few miles from the state capital complex. Living without Internet is easier and closer than it seems.
2
Several years ago my wife and I were driving from West Glacier to Helena, MT. Mostly pasture and cattle. About a third of the way I stopped the car, we got out and I asked my wife what she heard. After a few moments she said absolutely nothing. There were no noises; no cars, radios, airplanes. Nothing except one lonely distant moo! It was fantastic! Everyone should have an opportunity for that experience. Great article!
7
I was near Pelham Bay park in the Bronx, at a golf driving range. But I had a very bad experience after looking at my phone and seeing there was no 4g and that I couldn't even send a text message.
I started sweating and hyperventilating. My pulse was racing and my hands were shaking.
It was all I could do just to get back to my car and drive away. But then I came to 'T' intersection and had to go left or right. Panicked at the idea I might choose the wrong way and drive further away from any connection, I started to cry and put my faith in the dear Lord above that He would lead me to a signal.
After going about a mile after making the turn I pulled over to check my phone and was relieved to see I had 3 bars. I texted my mom just to let her know I was OK and drove home to my WiFi.
2
Nature is not quiet. Solitude and quiet are not the same thing and are not taken away when there is coverage. Turn off your cell phone, your computer and TV. Go hike, sit, listen, fish, read, watch birds and the stars. Experience nature. It's a choice.
9
Exactly! I wrote something similar. We are not victims of technology, technology is a tool.
1
Personal peace and solitude is a choice that anyone can make.
4
Many commenters are conflating having a cell phone and leaving it turned off or at home.
One great thing about a cell phone, off, is that every message not read is still there when you turn it on again.
3
I just wanted to add that the photographs in this piece were particularly stunning!
7
I agree with John Doe in NYC. Not better...just very different.
1
State of nature can get nasty, brutish and short. Just sayin’. Lack of connectivity can be overrated.
I felt like moving there, especially after I realized I've been glued to my laptop reading articles since I got home from work an hour ago : (
2
But reading artist was your choice. Technology is a tool you can use it or ...not.
How many readers will now flock to Green Bank, potentially overwhelming it? I wish the author had said it's in Tennessee.
5
as I read this on my phone!
4
It was not that long ago that this was normal.
5
Our lives are what they are because of our choices. Recently I did a favor for a neighbor who texted me a Thankyou where she mentioned I was a great neighbor she appreciated having around. As a joke I texted back that her sentiment is the reason I get so many likes on Facebook and so many Followers on Twitter! Fact is I'm not on any Social Media Platforms. For me personally it's a waste of my time and not something that interests me in the least. Not that everyone should feel the way I do. What I find amazing is many people I know have the latest Smart Phones, I Pads and Hands Free Devices etc..and when you call them they don't answer!Sometimes for days or not at all...and in my State it will soon become law that you cannot use a cell phone while driving! Distracted driving is a big problem. Who would think we would buy vehicles with DVD players and screens to take our attention away from driving with care? Seems we respond what is important to us and ignore the rest...sometimes at our peril. On the other hand when used responsibly the Internet is great and at times a life saver !! Without it ...we might not be able to keep up with what Trump just Tweeted...or wait...is that even relevant?? Maybe !!
1
If you have to take a phone into nature. If you miss your "contact" with the outside world when you're away from the
drone of humankind, you might as well stay home.
Drugs & alcohol aren't the only addictions.
3
I loved the article, but why the use of just B/W photos (maybe use sepia tone instead).
1
Clever use of black and white photos to make non-use of electronics appear even older.
1
My daughter and a close friend went to see Ariana Grande in concert last night. On the way home, they told us about all the people around them who were doing things other than being at the concert. A couple of girls were sitting in their chairs snap chatting, never looking up except when they took standing selfies against the background of Ariana playing. Someone else spent the whole time filming. Other people were just lost in their phones. In the meantime, they said that Ariana gave an incredible show, and they couldn't believe people paid hundreds of dollars not to watch. So what have we become that it is more important to document the experience than to be in it? Or to show others that we're part of it when we're too busy showing others to be part of it? I'm ready to donate to the Green Bank telescope fund.
6
Yes, it’s true there is a charm, as he wrote, seeing cell bars disappear, but we can turn the machine off and ignore it. That’s the real discipline people are missing. What is so important on your phone that cannot wait an hour or day? Are you a doctor with patients in the hospital? Really…There is an off button!
2
Just great Pagan, you have done to the National Radio Quiet Zone what Outside Magazine did to Horseshoe Bend Arizona....Brilliant,.....not.
Yeah looks and sounds great, for some. I wonder what the quality of life would be for me, an immigrant (yes, legal), man of color, liberal and a Muslim to boot. I bet the locals would find the lack of cellphone signal real handy while "welcoming" someone like me.
There is a fascinating documentary about this place on Amazon Prime by two young documentary makers. The series is called Off the Cuf...
OMG! Forget about the text! These are some of the most wonderful images I have ever seen in the NYT!
4
There is no shortage of idiots. You can have both, an unplugged world and instant connection, but not at the same time. Uninterrupted nature will educate you, so will walking in the city without reading text, listening and looking at what’s around you.
The experiences described by the author remind me of my own during two weeks in the Darien jungle living with an indigenous family. My scientist husband and I slept on a straw mat on the floor of their raised hut. There was no access to electricity let alone wi fi. After two weeks I did not want to leave this place. I still think wistfully of that experience forty years later. We all need to at least know what utter peace and silence feels like. Pl
3
Great story about a beautiful and very unique place. The photographs are superb.
We visited a few years ago and spent two nights in Cass, an old saw-mill town. Rode a coal-fired steam train — refurbished for passengers — up to the logging camp. There’s been no logging since the 60’s so the surrounding forest has pretty well regrown. The mill was eventually destroyed in a fire; today you can contemplate the wreckage and reflect on the impermanence of human endeavors.
If you want to photograph the telescopes be sure to bring a totally mechanical film camera. They’re quite serious about preventing radio interference. Outside the observatory you can use digital.
2
There is an OFF button; however, it is even not used where cell phones are prohibited. People are unable to keep them in their pockets or purses even when they sit down together. Take them away and people internally hemmorhage.
Cell phones and the net have their advantages. In Viet Nam phone calls were made via a ham operator. In 1980s Korea via a Korean operator that cut you off in mid sentence. Now you can face time from anywhere.
It's not the OFF button; it's the preference for a piece of equipment over each other.
2
I grew up in a noisy city and have always found it easier to concentrate on the midst of sound. In later life, learning about stochastic resonance (where weak signals can be made stronger by white noise) made me wonder if a city environment is best for intense learning. Lately, I wonder if this phenomenon has contributed to the development of "coastal elites" who just seem so smart some times. Or even substantiates Frank Sinatra's claim about NYC; "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.". Noise, it seems, is not a universally bad thing.
I suspect the author revels more about their dependency upon smartphones than an important change in our environment. The notion that a beautiful experience is somehow less, until it is shared, revels a perversion of what should be a a direct uninterrupted connection between one, and the natural world. I have a smartphone, and regularly leave it for days unused feeling no need to overshare what should be a private experience.
1
For my late 20’s through my early 40’s, summers usually meant trips out west and mostly to the quiet places far removed from the hum of tourism. Those most appreciated and remembered with joy were the ones where the roads were not paved, where there were no RVs to be seen and where the footsteps on the ground were most likely from things not human.
I remember in particular watching the sky one summer night long ago in Hovenweep National Monument where after the sun went down a riot of stars became visible in the very same sky we see at home, but much more poorly due to light pollution. Later that evening we watched a distant thunderstorm with brilliant lightning over Sleeping Ute mountain off in the distance to the east. Later that night in the early morning, I remember seeing the desert in the deep quiet illuminated by the moonlight.
Some feel their soul refreshed by the beach with thousands of people as far as the eye can see or the touristy over loved places like the Grand Canyon, but the places that resonate most strongly with me are the parts of the world with no utility poles, no paved roads and few signs that humans have been around mucking things up. Sadly those places are ever harder to find.
8
Graduated from West Virginia Wesleyan College in 1960. The quiet of the 1950’s was wonderful. After graduation, I went on for graduate study at New York University. The sounds of urban America made me long for the quiet (not silence ) of my West Virginia home. Like many of us, l found a career in NYC and only made occasional trips back home. Now retired, I live in rural Maryland watching the countryside become filled in with homes for other retirees. Finding my sanctuary of silence and solitude is a challenge, but I never forgot the beauty of quiet in my West Virginia home.
4
Can somebody tell me where the National Leaf-blower Quiet Zone is? I'd like to move there.
16
While I'm a huge believer in scientific research and am dismayed that such an important observatory as Green Bank had government funding slashed, I am also a believer that these new technologies have freed most of us, and "entrapped" fewer.
In developing countries, cell phones have been a crucial link because cell towers can be erected quickly without the need for the infrastructure land lines and cable communications require. Charging phones happens from small generators and solar chargers, and this would be far more difficult if lines had to be run.
Yesterday, my mother-in-law celebrated her 90th birthday. Neither I nor our eldest son were able to be there. So, instead, we both used FaceTime to "virtually" be there for her, my wife, and the rest of our family and participate.
You want silence? Leave the cell phone home. Go walking in the snow after a blizzard and the silence will be deafening. Enjoy it!
But when you're out in Nature, and you fall a break your leg, you'll want your cell phone or sat communicator so you don't die out there.
3
I’ve been going to Green Bank for more than 40 years, on and off, as a radio astronomer. This article captures the peaceful solitude of the place and the friendliness of the people. Parts of it (like the residence hall and cafeteria) have a 1950s kind of feel that is both quaint and refreshing. Mixed with the high tech, this place is unique.
6
This piece parallels the complaints about the quality of wifi on airplanes. At one time, it was NOT the expectation that we be connected at all times. When did we evolve into a situation where anything less than a prompt response is a snub?
In related news, there are 3 new Dark Sky national parks, bringing the total to 18 I believe. This is another kind of quiet that has been largely lost. Like being off the grid or actual quiet, the experience is rare and becoming more so.
2
There is something else that brings the kind of peace and solitude described in this article, and it's old age.
5
In theory, I could achieve this kind of freedom anywhere by shutting off my cellphone and observing an “internet sabbath.” But that has never worked for me — and I suspect it doesn’t for most other people either. Turn off your phone and you can almost hear it wheedling to be turned on again."
I think you would be surprised by the number of us who turn off our phones -- or, more to the point, turn them on only when actually needed. Some of us even have flip phones, and save the Internet for the home computer, laptop, or tablet.
It is indeed quite freeing.
3
It's difficult for me to understand the obsessiveness associated with owning a cellphone/smartphone, since I've never owned one, and don't intend to. What's 'normal everyday' to me, by being disconnected, is 'freedom' to others. I had no idea that some feel burden by their phone, and the question that comes to mind, is if one feels that way, why continue to have a phone?
Being phoneless is not scary or inconvenient.
Be brave and set yourself free!
I spent considerable time at NRAO over three decades ago, and remember with great fondness the Radio Quiet Zone, discussions late into the night, bicycles and old, decommissioned, diesel Checker cabs for transport, and beautiful star-filled skies, There, in the quiet, we practiced science without distraction, decoding the whispers of the universe. It is still happening today. May it long be so.
8
I love my quiet time. No television in the bedroom. My laptop stays home. I check my cell/email/texts once a day unless there is a real reason to check more often. I go for weekend walks at a nearby lake or park before folks come out to barbeque with loud music and kids. I love to wake up to the sound of birds. I am in NYC everyday for work, but I live outside the city, which is a must for sanity. On my commute into Manhattan Monday through Friday. I sit in the designated quiet cars of the train. It is important to carve out quiet time every singlevday. Hubby on the other hand loves to fall asleep to the television, and can't stand too much quiet.
I did some kayaking, shelling and nature photography when I lived in Florida. It was exceedingly difficult to find an area without signs of human use, either trash, abandoned "camps" or ever-present cell towers or utility poles. I now wonder about the kids in my neighborhood who are never seen off their property - do kids still ride bikes with friends, or is it all about texting or internet? Wouldn't be surprised to see implantable chips for humans to communicate so they don't need a cell to do their banking, check in with the parents or receive advertising from Google. Glad I'm old!
2
How about a real adventure and leave the phone home?
I cherish my quiet thoughts and try to keep my inner GPS always tuned. Give it a try for a real contemporary challenge!
I can’t do without the internet right now but we as a family got rid of TV back in 2013.
The wife and kids went through the DTs for a week or so but the reality six years on is that we haven’t missed it one bit.
1
Gentleness and peacefulness are destined to find their way to where we are and we are destined to be online no matter how wise the world is about how it structures its habitats and solitary places. There is no binary, either-or solution to anything. There are only ontological universals and these are few in number and they all end up encountering the ultimate reality which is love and the reality of existence which is probability's dependence on the freedom to make choices.
2
A connector is not a dongle.
A dongle is specifically a device attached to a port without which software will not run. It is a copy-protection device.
You connect to ethernet with an RJ-45 jack, a big brother of the phone jack. Interesting that this made it through editing.
4
"After a few days here, almost entirely offline, I felt I knew what he meant: The world outside the mountains now seemed mad to me, too."
"We must wire up rural America; cell service is now a utility almost as essential as electricity or heat."
This writer's complete and unconscious dissonance is the madness of our time.
5
For those who dwell in NYC or Chicago, life without background noise is unimaginable. And we have learned innately how to tune it, and other people, out. Our economy has an indispensible basis in advertising, so a seller has to "shout" its wares in some manner, either through TV, radio or now more importantly the internet. Isn't it disingenuous to dismiss this advertising's place in capitalism by pining and whining for quiet and solitude, when these are commoditized and sold at a premium to retirees, for example?
2
Did you ever just leave the phone at home (and not get credit for steps on your exercise app)? Bose earphones keep it pretty quiet. I’m more worried about light.
1
certainly we need to preserve such places, if not for scientific research, then as a respite to which the rest of us can escape on weekends or vacation.
However, imo, the real 'sound' battle is in the towns and cities. Current studies continue to reinforce the theory that noise can be extremely detrimental to our health. As cities become more populated, and especially as the cities become hotter (ac units are not quiet), they will become exponentially more stressful to residents with regards to sound.
Current laws are both under-enforced and badly written. For example, most sound regs are written using decibel limits: But certain frequencies are noises are just more irritating to us than others, which is why emergency vehicles use similar sirens. Many people cringe when someone drags fingernails across a chalkboard, and that's as quiet as a whisper.
1
I live in one of those places, the Adirondacks. However, it's economically deprived because it does not have Internet service. Young people leave here to find jobs in areas that have internet and cell service. Housing prices are depressed without connectivity. Telemedicine is impossible, elderly folks can't communicate when they're sick, the phone company no longer wants to service landline's, cable television is expensive and in many places not available, students are unable to get online to do research or learn how to use their computers. City folks may like a vacation from the internet but those who live in the Adirondacks, are disconnected much of the time. People have died in the winter cold, when they slid off and icy road and could not call for help. If you want a vacation leave your cell phone and laptop at home. But if you want to be rescued when you break a leg hiking in the High Peaks you will realize how important cell service in the mountains is.
5
Here's a thought. Want to lose your cell phone service? Simple just turn it off. Want to lose your radio and TV service? Just turn it off.
I have no problem with silence. Cell phone is off most of the time (only for emergencies). TV same thing.
There are so many things to occupy one's time, it's not necessary to be constantly turned on. In fact it is awful.
I live alone on a quiet street. I love the silence.
Pagan, you only have yourself to blame if you cannot find silence.
4
There are still many quiet zones in Canada. Indeed, most of the country is a dark sky zone. Fortunately, I don't have to go far to be out of range of cell phone service. It is both a blessing and a curse, as the essay makes clear.
1
A beautiful, timely, necessary meditation. Loved it, even though I would find it hard to go for too long without tech...
2
thank you for this beautiful report.
it just underscored why I refuse to give my boss my cell phone that he had inquired about. nothing is that important in line of work that out can't wait.
4
I recall the times when I walked in remote parts of deserts or descending into valleys between mountains and the buzzing of traffic and alarm signals of police and fire vehicles fade away and disappear. It felt strange, like busted eardrums. And it felt like becoming part of the natural world, almost like effortless mindfulness. That was before ubiquitous mobile phone and internet access. Many of those places now may be acoustically quiet but phones still vibrate and tear us from this ethereal experience and awareness. So, I am intrigued by those (electromagnetic, radio or light waves) quiet zones. Why would they not deserve becoming National Parks or Monuments? Also, mostly these zones exist in space, in fixed locations like the area around Green Bank. But more could exist in time, like a 1-2 week “electricity off” period in otherwise “modern,” mainstream counties and cities. That would give enough time to reconnect our consciousness and flurry of thoughts with our inner self, awareness and connections to what’s around us and our place in it. Of course it would allow super-sensitive astronomical and other experiments to be carried out in those places and days as well. This may well be impossible since screams of opposition citing personal liberty and imposing government could drown out the benefits. At the very least areas like Green Banks are worth preserving.
7
Great writing. Shades of Dune and The Doors of Perception. A very good basis for a literary work of art.
2
@damon, the photo story is just lovely...so beautifully shot!
4
If we use satellites for GPS why do radio towers matter??? That's the real question
Great photography!!!!
4
Suggestion - turn off your phone!
6
"I went to the woods to live deliberately." (That's Thoreau, of course, not a quotation from this article, lovely as it is.) I wonder if this now means one must seek out forests in other countries entirely -- if, of course, one considers the absence of cell service an absolute requirement for deliberate living. (We CAN, after all, turn the damned things off. But it is, and here I am thinking of the Times Pick answer by "John Doe," that we can't as easily shut off the world, with all its ambient mechanical noise.)
I don't know that it'd be an unalloyed good to be somewhere you can't call an ambulance if you have a heart attack, are trapped in a pit, or the like. I am at best leery of technology, but it's silly and Luddite to reject all of it, which, admittedly, this article does not do. But for me the real question--telescopes and scientists aside--that this article brought up for me was the tacit one: how much technological infrastructure can the world take before it goes full Borg? Before it looks like a gigantic scrapyard from outer space? (We are already orbited by vast quantities of space junk, and our oceans are dying because of the crap we dump in them, and deforestation in various forms is constant.)
Between climate change and our fixation with our gadgets, will my grandchildren know or care what it is, or was, to be among things green and growing? That is a truly depressing, and I think truly urgent, thought.
4
Initially, social media sharing was fun but device dependency coupled with too many 'feeds' can be overrated. There are only so many hours in a day and when those hours get eaten up by scrolling without purpose I'd say unplugging is a healthy way to reclaim time and mental balance.
6
Since there isn't a gravitational-wave detector at Greenbank (the only 2 in the US are in WA and LA), no, "physicists do not travel here to measure gravitational waves".
Which makes me wonder what else in this article was made up.
5
Maybe while they are listening they will realize that the big bang theory is incorrect and that the movement of our known universe is dictated simply by a larger singularity that is so massive as to be undetected so far.
2
What a beautiful piece. Thank you.
3
"To find real solitude, you have to go out of range."
Or you could, you know, leave your device at home.
6
Wish I'd known about this zone long ago. Would love to visit, quietly.
1
If you want solitude, you don’t have to go anywhere. Just turn it off.
8
When I turn off my cell phone, I can't hear it at all.
Maybe the author's phone has some kind of telepathic capability?
8
we should not be attacking anyone. lets finish the first wars then we can have a fresh start of disastrous wars
2
I’m reading this article from my phone, and I’m learning a lot of interesting new information, and I’m staying connected with world events.
If I didn’t have a cell tower and an internet connection, I wouldn’t be able to do any of this. Technology is a great thing. Period.
1
Andy, seems to me you have entirely missed the point of this piece. This is a place; a place to expreience not just to read about; a place to be alone with just ourselves; the kind of place that's vanishing just like our privacy.
13
For over 40 years I have gone on remote fly ins to Ontario. Sometimes they leave me alone for a week, sometimes with my wife or just my son, but never more than 1 other person. most people go their entire lives without ever really being alone. Now that I am 70, I bring a satellite phone, just in case. I bring music, but can go a week without listening. I just crave the silence. It sounds odd, but I can "feel" my ears relaxing.
14
Wonderful, wonderful photographs!
6
What a lovely, lovely article. Thanks. I spent my career as a science and technology journalist, relating to my readers and reveling personally in the advances of the last four, five decades that have allowed us all to communicate better, to know more about one another, and to share experiences — sometimes enlightening, sometimes bland, and sometimes merely self-aggrandizing. But as I enter my seventh decade, I am beginning to realize the price of that intercommunication. I have no solution — except that I will continue to prioritize humans in “meat space” over those who attempt to contact me over my iPhone Xs.
5
I must say I enjoyed this piece by Pagan Kennedy. For those who must be connected 24/7 so be it. For those who can appreciate the quite kudos! This article allowed me to value the ability to enjoy quite and disconnect as needed.
6
A good thing about being 60 is that I never got melded to a cell phone. Turning it off is an option for me.
12
What I get from the article is how few Americans this day and age can find an isolated place and not hear a human generated sound for hours. We have such a place hidden off trail back in the Sierra Nevada. The only intrusion on my quietude is the one or two airliners you may hear during the day. I guess this is about the best I can hope to find, but it makes me feel sorry for the rest of you guys who have never heard absolute natural quiet coupled with a sky full of stars and not seeing another human being for a week. Priceless for renewing the soul.
7
In fact, a microwave oven at the Parkes Observatory in Australia produced signals called "perytons" that were first mistaken for astronomical events. This was quickly clarified, because they did things that no astronomical object did, such as cycle on and off at the rate a microwave oven does, and were traced to a microwave oven in the break room.
6
Of course I am reading and writing this while on my iPad in the airport somehow connected to..... what and who and why? I am traveling with 2 iPads, an iPhone and of course an Apple Watch. I’m not quite sure how I got here, how we got here, but the idea of getting to a quiet place without the option of plugging in sounds so appealing. The fact that I could just leave it all behind and do it on my own almost seems as unreal as saying I could go without air or water. Damn, what have we done?
12
@Kathleen--Why does the option of "leaving it all behind" seem so "unreal" to you? Just do it! My (flip)phone sits at home half the time, and the other half it's in my purse, turned off. I turn it on to make a call about once every two weeks or so. This isn't hard!!
5
ridiculous. just turn your phone off.
13
I'm currently reading "How to Break Up with Your Phone," by Catherine Price. This is how I begin to get this "little slab of digital horror and delight" (a quote from the NYT last year) further and further away from me. There is a lot I miss about my pre-smart-phone life. I want some/most of that back.
1
The internet end is at the off button
10
This could really just be a piece on a lack of self discipline.
6
No irony at all that midway thru this gentle essay, there is a "sign up for more stories like this" ad embedded (inescapable) in the text, while a banner at the bottom begs me to allow ads.
Nope, no irony at all.
5
How is it possible to drive a car into this territory, since cars generate and emit a lot of EM noise from the operation of their control systems. I expect that the electronic control of car engine itself would generate more electronic noise than a cell phone or two. Perhaps the frequency range of this noise is different and is therefore outside the bandpass of the telescopes.
1
@Democrat the area has five zones of protection. Zones 1 and 2 Zone 1 and zone 2 are located within the property of the Green Bank Observatory. Gasoline powered engines are not allowed in Zone 1, only diesel.
Zone 2 allows intentional radiators licensed by National Radio Quiet Zone, but not other radiators such as Wi-Fi, cordless phones, and other wireless equipment. Certain types of unintentional radiators are allowed, however digital cameras are prohibited, although film photography is allowed.
Zone 3 and 4 regulates radio transmitters within 2 miles and within 10 miles of the Green Bank Observatory, respectively. Interference to observations is identified and documented. The owners of the radiating equipment will be notified.
Zone 5 is the boundary of NRQZ.
9
@Democrat the Green Bank telescope operates between 100 MHZ to 116 GHZ. The area is split up into five different zones, with each descending zone getting more restricted with respect to radio frequency emitters. The Green Bank telescope is not operational all the time, and they publish a operational sked, along with frequencies they will utilize. Here is their June 2019 sked:
https://dss.gb.nrao.edu/schedule/public
You can operate things such as Amateur Radio (long as you are not trampling over their frequencies) and you let them know if you are operating within 10 miles of the Green Bank telescope. Here is an example of some of the PR with respect to this issue:
http://www.arrl.org/news/vhf-uhf-mountaintoppers-rovers-asked-to-observe-radio-quiet-zones
Zone 1 all vehicles must be diesel, but not in zones 2-5.
1
Any time I want to get away from technology, I just shut it off and sit on my back porch near my flower gardens. It's easy.
Even with computer and phone and tablet on, I block location on devices most of the time. It's a matter of privacy. However, as someone in my 8th decade, I don't want to get too far from civilization. Even though I am relatively healthy, you never know when a fall or other untoward event will trigger a need for help, most easily received with a call from technology.
16
Living without a cell phone may be more common than you think. I'm an electrical engineer living in Minneapolis, and I don't own a cell phone. It's become quite a problem, too, because there are no longer any payphones in the City of Minneapolis that allow a call longer than 3 minutes. I've discovered that there are a lot of people around who don't have cell phones. Mostly because they can't afford the $40/month for the cheapest phone service available (for a burner phone). I have to rely on email at the public library, or take the bus to speak with someone. However, in an emergency I can still dial 9-1-1 from my disconnected cell phone.
My plight is one of political repression. A number of years ago I invented a way to check microchips for malware and viral implants. I thought I'd invented a better mousetrap, that the world would beat a path to my door, and I'd make a lot of money from it. I even refused Federal grant money so that I could export my inventions to the world, to make it easier to import and export electronic equipment. Huawei comes to mind - with my invention the phone companies here could inspect their equipment for malware. The same for our equipment going to China. Instead I found myself unemployable, homeless and broke. Black-balled from my profession. It seems the best way to suppress an invention that circumvents malware in microchips is to impoverish its inventor. That way, he can't make a phone call.
3
@W- Tracfone offers a $6/month smart phone plan.
1
@W - 96% of Americans own a cell phone.
First, let me acknowledge what others here have said: a lovely meditative piece, accompanied with the powerful contrasts below, that speaks volumes to the insanity of the current "connected" world.
However:
"Turn off your phone and you can almost hear it wheedling to be turned on again."
I have never in my life with cel phones -- from the Motorola brick, the flip or Smart -- had the experience of described above. IT's not wheedling, your brain is wheedling for more (unnecessary) stimulation to feed it's never-satisfied stimulation addiction.
"My fingers twitched for the cellphone that wasn’t there."
No twitching, either.
Those two gerunds, "wheedling" and "twitching," alone say tragically more than the actual article does so beautifully.
8
God, I am sick of people yammering on about their problems with their cell phones. I have a smart phone. I use it for a few things a few times a day, and the rest of the time put it away.
I live in a suburb of a major American city in the northeast. I can find an internet free zone in a nanosecond--and I don't need to travel to some weird place full of "electrosensitive" people clutching each other in fear behind mesh in order to do so. Do you know how I manage this extraordinary feat? I turn the damn thing off.
If your addiction to your phone and to the number of likes you are getting on social media is destroying your connection to reality and nature, get help. See an addiction specialist. The problem isn't with phones. The problem isn't with the internet. The problem is with you. Learn some self-control, for heaven's sake, and stop writing whiny articles about the internet with one hand while scrolling through your Twitter feed with the other.
13
As soon as I saw the signature Hasselblad cut outs on the image edge I wondered "What the hell?" Why would someone, besides a crank or an artist on a nostalgia project, be using medium format film in 2018-19?
Thanks for explaining the mystery: no batteries allowed. Using my same dumb phone since about 2005, with texting turned off, the writer's angst seemed like a report from some distant culture. Then I realized no batteries also (maybe) meant No Flashlights. OMG - how could anyone live like that?
1
@joel in Zone 1 and 2 (there are 5 zones) prohibit the use of digital cameras (they radiate), although film photography is allowed.
4
Oy. No one needs to go to Green Banks.
People just need to turn off the phone.
Having all of this connectivity and G to the Nth data streaming is just the latest form of hoarding.
Maybe people need a tiny Japanese woman to kneel down in their digital space, say a prayer, and then tell them to put all of their digital crap in a pile.
Then the tiny woman will ask them to touch everything.
Maybe they might have to cry for an hour as they realize that most of their 1037 friends on FB don't bring them joy and that HULU is about as cool as those skinny jeans that stopped fitting when they had their sympathy pregnancy in 2011. But they will feel better when their digital closet is clean and they can walk through the house of their life unencumbered by all of this electronic clutter.
So do it.
Get rid of that St. Elmo's Fire VHS then turn off the phone. Leave it in the car when you go inside to meet your old friend or when you go and talk to that woman that you actually met at the book store where you didn't just swipe her to the left because you didn't know that she loved the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
That said, today is the solstice. That means "Sun Stands Still." The sun is rising at its Northernmost point on the horizon.
I am going to go walk the park and feel the breeze on this cool (not even 70 degrees) first day of summer. My phone and this computer can chill in the trunk of the car.
8
This is a response to the headline, not the article: the internet goes out of range with an off button under your control.
3
Why do people think it's so cool to say life is better without cell phones and the internet?
Having a cell phone doesn't preclude you from sitting on your back porch staring at the mountains. It just means that you can take an important call or resolve a business problem with the ease that was incomprehensible twenty years ago. Then, go back to staring at the mountain.
Once upon a time, I guess people thought electricity was the devil, and cars, and the original hi-technology - fire.
155
@John Doe
Thank you, John Doe. I’ve been scrolling through the comments hoping someone would make this point. Very well said.
8
@John Doe All calls become important.
27
@John Doe -----" In an exchange, documented in The Justification of Johann Gutenberg (Blake Morrison 2000), Gutenberg gets into a heated argument with the head monk in a monastery that has decided to expel him:
Gutenberg: ‘To help men and women be literate, to give them knowledge, to make books so cheap even a peasant might afford them: that is my hope, yes.’
[...]
Head monk: ‘The word of God needs to be interpreted by priests, not spread about like dung.’
Gutenberg: ‘I do not wish to despoil the Word.’
Head monk: ‘But it will happen. To hand it about to all and sundry is languorous, Would you have ploughmen and weavers debating the Gospel in taverns?’
Gutenberg: ‘If that is what they want to do.’
Head monk: ‘But what of the dangers? It would be like giving a candle to infants.’
Gutenberg: ‘Such copies we make of the Bible would first be for monasteries and churches.’
Head monk: ‘The Bible? You plan to make the Bible as well?’
Gutenberg: ‘I have considered it.’
With the appearance of Gutenberg's printing press, rooms of monks were put out of work in perhaps the first technological layoff ever recorded. The copyist had to wonder: was their profession about to disappear? As a result, the printing press faced opposition:"
39
Hi... I think I am a Luddite. I’m 38. I have a phone that only makes calls and texts. Often I forget it. I do have an iPad but I can live without it.
I find people like the author selfish. I just find something quite selfish about this technology like it’s me, me, me ON DEMAND!!!
I bloody hate the technological world. It’s turning us all into morons. Have the will power and switch off.
6
@Leejesh I will when i finish the page i am on, smart phone page, studying basic Russian, or maybe when i done cruising the near bottom of the Pacific Ocean, or looking for new recipes.
I am old, now a widow, and it seems as if a new universe has opened up for me. Who would have thought such a universe would reside in my lap, literally, 25 years ago?
I love technologically!
And i do know how to turn it all off and listen to the sound of crickets before going to bed.
1
Nice photo work Damon. You tone monster.
4
Unfortunately, the author - throughout the article - mixes up two quite distinct topics. One is the protection of radio astronomy and similarly sensitive measurements from man-made noise; the other one is the widespread addiction to an "always-connected" status. For the latter, there is no need for a radio-free zone - all that is required is the willpower to use the OFF button on one's cellphone....
4
One group of people who respect quiet areas are birders. We cautiously creep through wild areas, ever so still while listening for the calls of feathered friends and transient passers-by. Groups of like minded people quietly congregate long the by-ways of the world, whispering of a sighted creature for others to observe. No cell phones allowed, ever. I love it. A day of this wonderful appreciation in stillness is the most rejuvenating thing I do. The sounds of nature left alone and quiet is quite magnificent.
8
Ironic that all the data from the radio telescopes are processed by computer, and scientific knowledge and even more data shared around the world by the internet.
1
interesting article, but the headline and introductory paragraph do not really represent the story.
I’m fortunate to live on a large parcel of undeveloped land in the middle of suburbia and have informally designated it a Dark Sky zone, but I can’t make it a quiet zone, because I work from home and the Internet makes that possible. But I hope places like Green Bank continue to exist — I’m appalled that federal funding for such important scientific research was slashed — and, hopefully, multiply. I plan to visit the Quiet Zone myself, just to soak up some of the peace and, yes, quiet.
3
I watched the whole thing evolve starting from the days of ARPA net. As professionals working in engineering, it seemed a useful tool but, at the same time, we called it an "electronic leash." And, personally, having grown up in the mountains of small town Pennsylvania, the whole thing, to me, is an obvious money making scheme (scam?) more than anything else. The market. So, this is what we have become. So, years later, I bought a phone . . . but, you know, it is sitting on my desk in the office and I just cannot force myself to enable the thing. I did the initial battery charge which suddenly made me aware of having to keep the damn thing charged. That was 6 months ago.
2
Airplanes flying above. Over 4 decades working and recreating in the wilder parts of Alaska, I've been on just two trips where I experienced multiple good-weather days beyond sight and sound of airplanes or con-trails. Airplanes are the most ubiquitous and direct contradiction to an experience of solitude, quiet, and wilderness. Sat-phones and trackers, though less obvious, more profoundly changed our potential to experience remoteness. Sure, you can choose not to take one, but the experience is still lessened by the fact they exist and what you need to consider in making the decision and living with it.
1
Oh how we need more zones like this for all kinds of reasons. For children to learn what it was like before the internet-cell phone era mainly, so they can experience what it's like to explore their own minds and imaginations quietly without ideas and images inserted instantly. My home is in a quiet town which often forces me to listen to my own thoughts which helps me actually manage the quality of my thoughts, which in turns helps to guide my day in a good way if I choose. I often feel grateful for this quiet. Beautifully written piece, I thank you Pagan Kennedy, and by the way I love your name, wonder if Mom gave it to you or you chose for yourself? Thank you Damon Winter for your black and white photos, you took me back to my childhood during the 50's and 60's growing up on a chicken farm in good old Petaluma California.
2
Great photo's. Thanks Damon.
Mike
Tremendously moving, thoughtful piece. The writer mentioned that a medium format camera was used for the images. Which one, please? What type of film?
4
@mochoa
Hasselblad. Don't know what b/w 120 film is available now.
1
Extraordinary photographs to accompany a most intriguing story. Thank you.
3
A misleading article. She was not where the Internet ends, but where wireless connectivity ends. She could go online with an Ethernet cable. Big deal.
There are many parts of the country where there is no broadband connectivity -- at all.
And the FCC's auction of 5G spectrum is irrelevant. Expansion of Internet connectivity in rural/remote regions isn't dependent on 5G.
2
What a lovely piece, both the writing and the photographs. Simply beautiful. Thank you.
2
If you happen to have a box of old letters from friends and family, you might find it interesting to read them now and consider what we've lost by no longer writing letters, another casualty of the internet.
In the case of substantive letters, the commitment to the act of thinking about the other person and physically writing and mailing these things produced in the receiver the sense that, "someone out there is indeed my true friend, I am important to this person".
9
This wonderful article was not to me, a trip though the past, but a very humane consideration of the present. So thoughtful and beautifully photographed, that I almost feel regretful that I have to send this letter electronically. Thank you, Pagan!
3
Thank you Pagan Kennedy and Damon Winter for this lovely portrait of the Green Bank Observatory and the surrounding Quiet Zone. The Observatory is a beautiful and magical place that inspires the young and young at heart to look beyond themselves and contemplate the unique place we hold in the universe - and the importance of preserving our future.
We have been lucky enough to visit there many times and have been impacted in profound ways - as have so many. The Observatory is at the leading edge of astronomical discoveries, STEM education initiatives, and technological innovation at the same time as being an integral part to the Green Bank community providing much needed assistance in day to day living as well as an emergency site during power outages in instances of flooding and other disasters. My children have been impacted in life changing ways too and from our experiences - we wanted to give back and ensure that this magic is continued for many generations to come and have formed an advocacy group - GO! Green Bank Observatory - to provide information on ways to ensure this facility and the surrounding community is supported through the funding difficulties and other challenges that can arise. There is a website and Facebook page available for the advocacy efforts that goes by the same name - GO Green Bank Observatory - where information is updated regularly about the status and work. Every voice counts.
12
What a lovely article. Thank you. I believe that in spite of all of their benefits, we’d be very much happier if there were no Internet and if there were no cell phones . I think they have poisoned our society and our lives. In fact I believe the Internet is the antichrist.
7
I would offer that there are parks in our very area that are not well served by mobile phone networks, e.g. Harriman, not to mention the Catskills, and other wilderness areas, where one has to climb to the summit of a mountain in order to get service.
I think I could do without my cell phone (I don't look at it when I'm in motion) but the internet, that's another story. It was unsettling, during hurricane Sandy, to wait a month for Verizon to restore our service. Being unable to write a Comment to the Times, what a blow to my ego.
1
If you want to be out of range, you need not travel to the wilderness. Just turn off your mobile device.
10
@LDre Thank you for reiterating this obvious fact. Common sense, along with self control are two things that are in short supply these days.
3
@LDre
The writer actually discussed at some length why this doesn't work for him/her. But maybe you're saying "Just have stronger intent."
To the Intent & Self Control aspect, my impression was that the writer was able to generally control Behavior but - like most of us - not State of Mind - in this case the vague feeling of discontent at turning off the phone, which disappeared when the source of temptation was gone, the possibility being taken away. Like a mild case of withdrawal, it's not unusual for some users - maybe most? - who intend to quit or clean up for a while have a much harder time when their substance is available than when it is not. Those old neural networks, you know.
Avow of silence is easier in a solitary environment. A vow of inner silence is much harder. The audience is always close to hand.
Hear, hear. Quite. Thanks for the lovely specificity.
1
as someone who picked up a kid and drove him to hockey practice in way early am, I was very aware of holes in my cell coverage. being able to call for help when u r in a ditch before the plows are out is a good thing
1
In regards to the dark sky, when I moved into my house it was very dark in my neighborhood. Then they built a few houses in which the owners seem to be afraid of the dark. They installed, with the power company’s encouragement, street lights in their yards that burn all night. The house across the street from me is lit up like a gas station.
These people are not using their yards at 2AM, what is wrong with them.
After Irma hit, with no power available, I was for the first time in my 63 years able to see the Milky Way clearly. The amazingly beautiful night sky is being obliterated by stupid, scared people.
36
@Paulie Maybe this area is a gun free zone, hence the fear.
The expansion of the grid is a sign of progress. If you want to be off the grid. Shut off your devices. Problem solved.
4
In this age, even when people go on vacation and DO find quiet and peace they feel the need to immediately instagram it. Pathetic.
6
@M. Grove The desire to share photos of beautiful or exotic destinations may come from the joy that person feels in being there, in that moment. That's not pathetic. On the contrary, we should expose ourselves to more joy each day.
Food for thought. And a chance to escape the constant noise from the outside, and our inter-dependence on the 'phone', to 'stay connected'. But our inner noise may keep contaminating the mind. I guess that, at least for some of us, as we aim to lose our ego and become one with nature, the 'horse is out of the barn' already, as it knows that even though some pause does wonders, we yearn to belong to our crowd; after all, we are social beings and need/love each other, and enjoy whatever life has to offer, life being too short already. And what better than to share it. Still, frequent escapes into the wilderness, with your phone off, is the best of remedies in this convulsed environment. And I haven't even mentioned the Trumpian violence the Press remains too eager to cover...as if Nature's disasters (droughts, floods, fires) weren't enough to worry about, as we humans increase their frequency and intensity by sheer greed and stupidity.
@manfred marcus. Yes, and don’t forget about those UFO’s that the govt is finally admitting exist. No doubt Mr. Trump summoned them from an alien base in Bolivia. :)
"We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate . . . As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough."—Thoreau, Walden, 1854
7
Nonsense, the internet ends wherever you want it to. Just don't use a device.
8
It’s distressing that people even notice when they have no cell service. Cellular smart phones are the crack cocaine of this generation and they seem to be doing more damage. How many deaths can be attributable to inappropriate smart phone use?
3
something else about our "connected" society? most appointments you make with people are subject to last minute approval or change. I fondly remember the days before pagers and then cell phones...... if you wanted to be thought of as a responsible person you set up an appointment and you kept to the arrangement. what a concept! now? too many times I hear "let's confirm in the morning" or whatever...... I always want to say and many time do..... "no. we are confirming now".
8
Here's a novel thought: TURN OFF your phone, computer and other internet connected devices!
6
try vermont and agonize at the silence of your GPS
2
I manage this all the time... but on a boat sailing offshore or to remote islands. Thankfully most folks don’t know much about sailing!
1
> who will save the endangered Quiet Zone inside
> our own heads?
You cannot give another control of "(y)our own head" and, at the same time, be free.
No internet, eh.
In a lot of ways, those people are lucky.
1
I worked on my first computer (Univac 1218) in 1962 and for 40+ years I was a system engineer for the second largest computer systems company, only IBM was bigger. Now I live on 5 acres out in the middle of Montana, no telephone (not even landlines) and no internet, it is great. I come into town about once a week and do whatever business I have to do. I really appreciate this article
13
Heaven, if it were a real place, would be like this.
3
Want to get off the grid? It's so simple, anyone can do it any place, any time: Just turn off your phone and your computer internet access. Voilià!
2
"There are fewer places to go without WI-FI. And that's as it should be."
Why? Where is it written that we must have electronic devices---devices that control our lives literally from the moment we wake up (check that phone!) to the moment we drop dead from a day of information overload.
The author, like nearly everyone else, could choose an "internal sabbath", but how can we, with our devices "wheedling for attention" like a tantalizing confection on the dessert cart next to your restaurant table, or gifts under the tree the day before Christmas, or like a cigarette, a glass of wine, a shot of morphine, another potato chip....
We have it entirely within our power to not only control this beast, but to slay it entirely. But if you don't know that there is a way of going from A to B without GPS, or that there was honest-to-god life happening in full splendor before the internet, how can you possibly comprehend that there's....a way out of this.
When you are not even aware that there is a way out, how could you possible miss it?
1
Soooo the writer needs enforced quiet spaces due to a lack of self control and even in such a space lacks the self control to maintain it? Sounds like the personal problem of an addict who isn't sure if they want to break their habit and who returns to their habit as soon as they can.
2
oh please. If you want a cell phone free life, turn it off. It's really easy to do. Don't turn it off for other people - the real crisis is the lack of internet access in rural communities
1
It's clear that people have no idea a phone or computer can be... wait for it... turned *off*. This is basically all one needs to know about people.
3
HAHAH There are plenty of no-service areas right here in Duchess County, only 75 miles North of NYC. Our cell service is so poor we have to maintain a land line.
1
Dude turns off his cell phone for a few days and he thinks he's some kind of mountain man. It's not the access to the internet, it's the sick desire to be on it all the time.
Get back to me when you can leave it on and not answer it.
2
Want to go off the grid? Your device does have an "ON/OFF" button remember. :Place it in the OFF position. Voila! You're welcome!
2
Such a well done article; the photography is superb.
New York Times really have to get out more! There are vast regions of the US without cell phone service! At best, Verizon signals may be available at elevations! Many areas would love the ability to 'plug' into wired high speed internet! Instead, many rural Americans have no alternative but undependable satellites for TV and internet access. Most of Louisa county (central VA, 55 miles from Richmond - 25 miles from Charlottesville) has that situation. Out tiny county government is trying to fund installation of local internet so high school students can effectively do their homework from home! Your reporters moan about to much technology. Rural America needs government help (lie the TVA that brought electricity) so our young can participate in what everyone else takes for granted!
1
"In theory, I could achieve this kind of freedom anywhere by shutting off my cellphone and observing an “internet sabbath.” But that has never worked for me"
So this is really an article about not having enough self control to turn off your phone?
5
> who will save the endangered Quiet Zone inside
> our own heads?
Have you so convinced yourself that you're helpless to choose how you live? That you need to travel hundreds of miles to ignore your phone for an afternoon?
"Places of quiet" are everywhere, literally. But you can't look for them - you have to look, instead, for yourself.
1
Another reason not to have children.
2
Why does one need to go out of range to find real solitude. Why not just leave your devices behind?
5
I threw away my cell phone seven years ago. I have had exactly three urgent situations where I needed to make a call. In seven years. It is wonderful to leave the house knowing that nobody is going to hunt me down with a request to buy a loaf of bread. I m free to enjoy what is going on around me.
I know the objection will come that children must be monitored and the job requires our availability. Rubbish. You are making a choice to obey the imperative of an insane society rather living in the real world.
7
Thank you for your searing questions. More than ever, we need quiet.
I'm surprised he never mentioned catching up with the world by sitting down with a cup of coffee and a newspaper.
1
Thank you Pagan Kennedy for this lovely discussion and portrait of the Green Bank Observatory and surrounding Quiet Zone. The Green Bank Observatory is a beautiful and magical place where young and the young at heart are inspired each day to look beyond themselves. There is an advocacy group helping to communicate the importance of the Observatory in the fields of research, education, engineering and technology, and the local community and urging people to advocate and support the GBO to see that its important mission is continued. To learn more about the efforts of the advocacy group - Get Organized for the Green Bank Observatory or GO! Green Bank Observatory - as well as keep abreast of related news visit https://www.facebook.com/GoGreenBankObservatory/
and http://gogreenbankobservatory.org/
You can also learn more at the Observatory's website: https://greenbankobservatory.org/
Thank you again and stay safe!
1
Oh, please. Anyone that doesn't understand the benefits of the internet, turn off your computer right now. Bye bye.
1
if I want to disconnect i use the off button
2
I live near a National Forest with very dark sky locations and most have no cell signals.
See ya.
Dead Zones in 2011...I'm sure this has changed:
https://matadornetwork.com/trips/10-cell-phone-dead-zones-worth-a-trip/
While electronic devices are not prohibited in Baxter State Park, if you use one and it interferes with anyone's peaceful enjoyment of the Park you will be banned from the Park. And leave your dog at home, they are prohibited in the Park.
2
"I was allowed to summit it". What kind of language is that?
3
Exactly what I thought when I read it! It's a huge satellite dish, not a mountain, for heaven's sake!
1
Reminded of hiking a trail at Monticello. It was in the fall, we stopped to sit and just admire. I noticed that I could hear the leaves breaking off the branches and then again when they hit the ground. I realized there was no man made noise of any kind and it was the most wonderful experience. I'm not normally a fan of the word Zen, but that's the best word I can think of to describe that experience. Thank you for an article that reminded how wonderful that was.
2
I'm not particularly troubled by the reduction of off-the-grid places. As other commenters have observed, there is an off button. Or you can leave the cell phone at home. Watch any TV show or movie from, or depicting, the pre-cell phone and pre-internet age, and you get a sense of how people seemed to manage without 24/7 access. (Though I have to admit that my reaction is usually, just use your cell phone!).
That said, cell service sure is nice to have when my wife calls me from the woods she's walking in and tells me she'd like me to pick her up from the nearest road because she hears the bear crashing through the woods.
I realize that this was not the particular focus of this essay, but an equally important issue is that areas are off-the-grid, or service is spotty, where it shouldn't be. Rural communities do not have access to reliable cell service or decent broadband service throughout much of the US. And no one seems to care. In my small NH town, cell service is pretty good, but it is spotty throughout the region. Broadband service is available via cable, but only if the cable company or phone company deign to run their lines in the more remote areas. Note: They don't. And no one - not the town, county, state, or phone and cable companies - cares. It's the price we pay for living where we do, they say. We've been assured for more than 15 years that the various phone companies to expand high-speed service to rural areas. Plans only, it seems.
I was just in Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah. No cell phone coverage for miles. Also has to be one of the quietest places In America. All these stories in the New York Times and related publications with either the explicit intent or implicit tone of talking about the enormously high population densities in the coastal cities and their associated problems. You people avoid the interior like the plague and it baffles me. It’s such a beautiful country and the amount of unpopulated space is overwhelming.
Compulsion leads to addiction. Just say no. Be aware, make choices, follow through, evaluate, make progress.
I've been thinking about issues like this one quite a bit. I'd say philosophically I'm techno-light, but when I have my cell phone with me, I find myself pulling it out and looking at it for no reason at all. My wife, for some reason, has the self restraint just to turn her cell phone on at the end of the day to see if she has any messages. I'd like to think that is the behavior of the majority of cell phone users, but most are likely like me. Consequently, I leave it turned off and in a drawer and only turn it on when I'm traveling - ironically, that is usually when I'm off on a backpacking trip where I have no coverage. I have a phone here at work and a phone at home. Why do I even have a cell phone at all? How did we get to this place?
1
Very thoughtful and beautiful article and Reader’s Comments. It is wonderful hearing how different individuals respond to the same article.
A famous statement was , “ The medium is the message “ - that has morphed into “ The medium is the Reality “.
The musical album “ Pure Comedy” directly reflects upon this, in amazing ways. I recommend it highly to explore this terrifying reality. Facebook gave us Trump, it really did.
When I was a New Jersey kid, in the long ago 1950's, we would lay flat on our backs on the front lawn to gaze at the stars, and pick out the constellations. We had contests to see who could identify more of them.
This morning in the supermarket check out line, a boy about 6, standing with his mother, was so engrossed in his smart phone that he didn't even move ahead when his mother did. I had to tap him on the shoulder to point out that his Mom was two persons ahead of him.
Totally giving up my phone would be hard, but being off grid is something everybody should experience on a regular basis.
Thank you for a beautiful piece of writing.
I served a Mormon mission during the end of the period when missionaries weren't allowed cell phones. The first week was awful. The second week was less so. By week three I was fine and didn't miss it.
I survived 18 months in 2014 - 2015 walking around the Los Angeles California suburbs without a cell phone and everything was fine. We had email for an hour a week, but it was monitored and literally just email.
The biggest thing I noticed was that so much of what I would have cared about and followed obesseively on facebook mattered 0 in even the short term.
I'd miss microwaves (I enjoy popcorn and have never managed to master Jiffy pop over a fire) but after reading this I long deeply for those days. Not so much the shilling for a cult part, but the technology free part.
Also -- for anybody who wants a toe dip in the cellphone free pool -- huge chunks of Grand Teton national park are signal free. It's prettier, and less trafficked, then it's neighbor Yellowstone and this is the time of year to go!
2
I’m recently back on the grid after almost a week in the deep of Yellowstone and Grand Teton NPs. The time with the woods, my partner and myself was restorative. The first night “back” was jangling and annoying and loud (TV). Within a day I am back to reading 3 newspapers on line, mindlessly scrolling through social media, and have reconstructed the capacity to tune out noise which, I am newly aware of, causes me to tune out too much.
2
I live next to Yellowstone. Relative to cell service, I feel the Park has lost its way, thinking that the only way to cater to young persons and tourists is to amp up coverage. If we can't have Quiet Zones in the wildest places left in the lower 48, like Yellowstone Park, then we are certainly lost.
2
Thank you for a great read. Being retired, there is no longer the plague of receiving those "important" phone calls at all hours. With Do Not Disturb on from 11 to 7:30, no one can get through during those hours except those I designate. With Caller ID I never pick up for a number I don't recognize (if it's important, they'll leave a message). If no message, I simply block the caller. In other words, I never receive Robocalls. With that said, I find the cell phone to be totally invaluable. Having the Library of Congress at your fingertips is amazing beyond belief. Never getting lost while driving is a godsend. The availability of reading material, movies, music and tv while sitting in airports and waiting rooms is a wonder. Without having to paraphrase Charlton Heston, I would never think of ever giving up my cell phone. The only noise in my life that I have found disturbing emanates from the bass of inconsiderate neighbors' stereo systems. If I could only think of a way to persuade them to enjoy their music on that most marvelous of devices, the cell phone.
5
We climbed My. Leconte in the Smokey Mtns to the rustic cabins for years every May. About the 4th year people were getting cell signals and on their phones.
That ruined my getaway.
If I have internet or cell I use it, if I do not have it I am fine. It is very strange to me that I am ok if I can't connect but if I can connect, I am on my device.
1
Seeking quiet; go to a large local park.
In my youth (1950s and 60s) I escaped from the Bronx to the Bronx, Pelham Bay Park!
Yes, it is possible to achieve a measure of external quiet and solitude thus promoting internal quiet and solitude.
For some individuals quiet and solitude are anxiety producing.
Personally, I usually turn off my phone.
Way back in ancient history (1966-69) I lived in Kenya (PCV) without electricity or phones connected to my house. The electricity was at a school across the road or in the village (~1.5 mi. distant) for 4 hours; the single party line phone worked only during the day and was in the school's office. It was there, Kenya, a Bronx boy learned to more than appreciate quiet & solitude, to relish it.
It is possible to escape the connectivity
1
We are in rural Sacramento Valley in an oak woodland 15 miles west of highway 5. Because of topography and distant
cell towers we have no cell phone service. Drives my children
and grandchildren crazy when they visit. Our internet is
via microwave - slow and intermittent, and non existent
during bad weather.
If you really do not want to be disturbed, you can simply turn your phone off.
Personally, I would rather have access to cell phone coverage as my choice.
If I don't want to be contacted, I simply turn off my phone.
If there is an emergency, I want the option of turning the phone back on and being able to call for help.
5
I loved the mood conjured by this article. It reminded me of my summer home, once cut off from time and news, now connected like so many other places.
For those who seek the next level of disconnection with the connected world, try the backcountry of the sierra nevada on a trail like the John Muir. No cell phone signals, no roads, no stores. There are still people here however, who share the experience in a more direct, undistracted way.
4
Beautiful prose by Ms. Kennedy and sumptuous images by the enormously talented Mr. Winter. A lot of memories percolated up from my past.
I spent much of my youth in that part of West Virginia, kayaking and climbing and socializing with the locals. However, that was well before any of us had even imagined the Internet or portable phones that tethered us to the world.
Sometimes a group of us would arrange to meet at a river. Someone back home would be the designated point of contact, the person we'd call if there was a problem. Mostly though, we hoped everyone's cars would function normally, the maps would be accurate, and we'd meet at the put-in at the pre-arranged time. Often the biggest adventure was just getting to the river.
Our family is about to leave on our annual trip to the Klamath river in the northern-most part of California. This is our twentieth year. There will be fun rapids and bald eagles and Ukonom Falls, a sacred place for the Karuk tribe. And there will be no cell coverage or Internet access, I hope.
My wife and I frequently go to remote places. We did an eight-day hike in Patagonia last March, climbed Kilimanjaro in 2017, Backpacked for a week in Kings Canyon last fall. We always leave our phones behind. And we always enjoy the solitude and freedom.
5
Beautifully executed piece. Between the thoughtful, introspective writing of Ms. Kennedy and the quiet, contemplative black and white images of Mr. Winter, this piece, like the subject it covers, provides respite.
Not long ago, I pulled the cable. Reading and writing are my passions, and I found myself engaging in these delights less and less frequently. At some point, one has to look within and make the choices necessary to ensure pursuit of that - and those - you love most. If we fail to provide time and effort for what is important to us, we fail at life.
Meet face to face with loved ones, read a book, draw something, write it down via pen on paper. You'll surprise yourself. I have.
5
I really don't understand why people can't just turn their phones off. This author says she can't do that, it's not the same as being out of range . . . Why? I don't have a smartphone and my old flip-phone (that I carry for emergencies) is turned off except when I actually need to make a call. Why is this difficult? I don't get it. If you don't want to be bothered by texts, calls, etc., just turn the phone off. Or even leave it at home. It controls your life and your thoughts only because you actively allow it to do so.
6
This articles reminds me my trip on the Outher Hebrides in Scotland, poor coverage only in the main town Stornoway.
for the rest, well, less than NOTHING.
Only fantastic views , oceanic beaches , one-lane roads and people always ready to smile at you and have a word with anyone.
this article is an ode to keeping our heads up and admire the world surrounding us.
8
A beautiful piece, read on my phone, hunched over.
4
Man-made sounds for all seasons. Roaring lawn-mowers in the summer, leaf blowers in the autumn, snow blowers in the winter, and Spring - a celebration of renewing, returning and discovery expressed in so many ways.
2
"Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence."
Great article. My 19 year old is currently on a paleontology dig in NW Colorado, far from any communication signals. I'm hoping he can "hear" that peace.
3
It's not just America's off grid places disappearing, all the planet's pristine places are too. And yet, people are still having so many children. I guess they haven't yet figured out that overpopulation is a contributor to the sprawl resulting in loss of pristine places. Developers who can't bear to see coastline without a massive resort on it, are also to blame. Never mind the 'grammers who don't know how to turn off geotagging for places that should remain somewhat secreted.
I did love living in Costa Rica in a once pristine but rapidly developing area near Corcovado. It taught me patience and acceptance. Because when the internet goes out, you have to wait for a guy to get to the river to get on a boat to come to the bay where you were to fix it. And you just had to wait for however long that took, and find something else to do in the meantime. Like go for a long paddle and commune with the ocean!
5
What is bizarre is how eagerly and universally we submit ourselves to the dictates of the phone in our pockets or purses. Anything you need, phone, I am right here to give you.
We can't deny the phone anything. It's the boss, we are the puppets always looking down, tuning out the world around us, ignoring those pesky things walking around...what are they, people? Yuck.
I am a technology consultant, mainly dealing with networking and implementation of newer, complex technologies. I've been focused on the future and the possibility of computers and networking since high school days, a time when there were no practical personal computers. Yet, I am appalled by what we are allowing technology to do to our lives.
Texting, like email, can be an insistent way of carrying on disagreements, prolonging disputes into raging controversies. Written words are different than spoken ones and they deprive the person on the receiving in of asking for an immediate correction or deflection of anger. They can escalate bad situations into crisis or the loss of friendship.
I limit what I do on the smart phone and don't care that the internet is always available. There is no practical need most of the time to constantly look things up. What I see others doing looks like mania to my eyes.
FREEDOM from constant bother and nuisance is available, if you want it. Put the thing down and stop fiddling with it.
7
What a fabulous experience! I’m old enough to remember leaving home on Summer mornings to actually play outside all day. We were called home for supper by a bell that hung on a post in the front yard. Mom or Dad rang three times. If you missed it or pretended not to hear it you ate leftovers. Our kids today are “vitamin-sunshine” deficient, becoming hunchbacked from looking down, and called home with a text. Tragedy abounds. And I wrote this note on one such device because there’s no other address available where a handwritten note could be sent. It is we who are owned by our devices.
3
I am not from Green Bank but never the less spend a good bit of my youth there and in the surrounding area during the 70s and 80s. I am originally from Charleston WV but my family has had a vacation / hunting cabin situated in Dunmore WV which is 7 miles south of Green Bank since the 50s. The article does a good job of explaining the feel of the area yet I find it amusing. When I was hiking, fishing and hunting on those mountains and streams the internet and cell phones didn't exist. We didn't even have a land line in the cabin until the very late 80s. We didn't have a TV in cabin because there were no TV signals to be found and you could only pick up an AM radio signal if you were lucky.
People who live there don't miss modern mass communications because they never had access to it to begin with. TVs only became common place with the proliferation of Satellite TV. To this day you still have to drive over an hour to Elkins WV if you really want access to the things that most of us take for granted. However, even as a child I was always happy to get back to the "big" city of Charleston after spending up to a month there over the summer.
1
Where to find solitude in America?
There is no place. Nor is there the opposite, a place of true community, honest accounting, and due given to the best humanity has to offer. What we live is a cruel middle ground, and the internet, modern technology, is at the center of it. Millions are peddled the myth of possible privacy, solitude, especially if they become luddites, just log off the computer, but that's as silly as turning to drugs for solace or trying to fight a battle by turning to primitive technology, sticks and stones, running away. There is no running away. That's just to be classed as a fleeing animal after pretty much already being classed an animal or at best an irrational human.
The internet is a nightmare of con after con, power structure after power structure enforcing, protecting its often quite simple views, forcing people to conform to this or that or slyly suggesting to just log off the internet, go enjoy nature, that solitude still exists if only you look for it. Yeah, and they would know, they've been there before and know where to find you if they need to in an instant. The internet is a new barrier: Those in the power structure, the 'accepted', are the ones with 'reason'. The humans not accepted are at best the 'irrationals' and at worst classed as animals and put in place or encouraged to get off the internet and 'enjoy nature', that world where all the animals are dying, being washed out by continued civilizational advance. Yeah, I get the message.
2
my parents live in a rural area of tennessee... there is no real wireless or internet service at their home. if i am visiting, it doesn't really bother me that much for myself. but my parents' (both in their 80s) lives would be so much easier if they could fill out a food order on line and pick it up at walmart, instead of having to drive 40 miles (each way) to spend hours shopping when they could spend maybe an hour or two in town, without exhausting them. schoolwork for my nephews and nieces would be easier and research for my sister in law and others going for their degrees (which could also be online)... the tennessee valley was years behind getting electricity, single household phone lines and water lines. there is a cell phone tower -- has been for months, but not one provider has put a cell collector on it. why are these areas so under developed?
I find it very telling that the author doesn't choose to live offline full time. Would he or she be willing to do it for a month? A year? As someone who lives without cell service or high speed internet I can tell you it's no picnic. It affects every part of your live from my children's education to my property value. I love how people romanticize the past but choose not to live in it. There's plenty of food out there to be hunted and gathered and plenty of caves to live in, but no one does. Go figure.
@Sean O'Donnell: Very few of us would choose to live without modern conveniences. Some of us just appreciate those brief intervals of disconnectedness in our otherwise tethered lives--in Ms. Kennedy's case, just three days.
Perhaps we romanticize it. Or perhaps it's the scarcity that endows it with meaning and value. Me? I appreciate the ability to pass, as I choose, from the connected world to places where I am alone. I'd never choose to live full-time in either world.
1
With no cell phone calls or web-surfing to interrupt her, it would seem that Pagan Kennedy has been afforded the opportunity to let her imagination (and verbiage) run free ... and on, and on. An interesting article, but WAY too long and self-absorbed. But oh, those photos! I've always admired Damon Winter's work, and to see how he uses b&w film and a medium format camera is a pleasure to behold. Please sir, may we have more?
1
Especially enjoyed the incredible photos that accompanied this fascinating article. Thank you.
I agree that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to remain disconnected in the world.
If it wasn’t for wilderness spaces (which I help protect), many of these quiet spaces would disappear.
The strategy I use for keeping my mind mostly quiet, has been to relegate my Facebook and Twitter usage to certain devices, which aren’t my smartphone, and infrequently use them. By doing this I’ve been more free to read, to observe the mountains and the cityscape, and people, when on the bus.
This is how I’ve fully reenabled my sanity after leaving Facebook 7 months ago. All of this is possible; it just requires changes and having to reach out to others to build connections using more “classical” (phone calls, face-to-face meetups) means.
1
@Ngie--"The strategy I use for keeping my mind mostly quiet, has been to relegate my Facebook and Twitter usage to certain devices, which aren’t my smartphone, and infrequently use them."
Even easier--never sign up for Facebook or Twitter in the first place, or, if you already have accounts with them, close those accounts. I've never used either of those ghastly platforms, and the more I learn about them, the less I am able to imagine why anyone would want to sign up with either of them, ever.
I live in beautiful seaside village in northern California. We have lots of tourists and it pains me to see many, mostly young people, staring at their phones in restraunts and as they wallk around town (even on the beach). I want to say "Turn off the phone. Look around!") But I don't. Makes me sad for these addicts.
My cell phone stays plugged into my charger at my hone. No bars. I take it out on long trips for safety and convenience .
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There are still places like that in a small country like the Philippines in the northern parts of Luzon in the mountains where people don’t have no electricity in their homes, no running water which they rely only on spring water. I was visiting a classmate who became a nun and has been living in this remote area and built a home for the orphanage for over 20 years and my stay with her was absolutely experiencing the very basics cooking with firewood , organic vegetables and wild berries and fruits come from her garden, there she was raising free range chickens. Other basic needs to go down the nearest town she has to walk through narrow rice paddies, up and down the rocky trail and passing on the suspended bridge about 25 feet above a flowing river approximately about an hour walk to get to the main road.Complete darkness and deafening silence at night only stars and the moon are brightening the surrounding area on a clear sky. It is surreal but it does exist. My cell phone was at rest for a few days and I was in communication with Mother Nature and just loved it!
3
The visitor's center for the National Radio Observatory is in what was once the front yard of my grandfather's farm. It is one of the quietest, most peaceful places on earth. It was one that farm where I first heard the wind whispering through some overhead wires.
My grandparents raised 4 children on 90 acres, three of them college graduates, one a PhD botanist. They did this without public assistance, SNAP cards or other government help. They were not poor; they purchased a new Essex automobile that my father drove his older brother to college in. They were well read, well fed and both lived into their late 80's. Most of what they ate, they raised on the farm. I would give anything for one more of my grandfather's country hams or the cultured butter my grandmother made. Different times.
4
"Mr. McNally seemed to be of the opinion that the rest of the country, out there beyond the mountains, was losing its mind."
It has lost it's mind. As a former university professor, I believe we have lost a generation of young people to their phones. Think. A phone. My old iPhone served as a good alarm clock, until it broke when I kept knocking it on the floor 3 years ago. What have I missed? Nothing. Nothing at all.
E-mail? A giant black hole you can never get out of. During a long illness, I decided to ignore it and gave students my home landline number instead. Several days ago, a former student called me at home to ask me a question about my area of expertise. We talked and laughed for 30 minutes. I was deeply gratified. And connected. I felt connected to another person. Isn't this the meaning of life?
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I deliberately vacation in a remote area of the NorCal coast where there is no cell or internet. A similar "quiet zone" can be found in the central Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We discovered this when we drove for a couple of initially panicky, then fully delightful hours in the wrong direction following Google Maps on my cell phone which had cut out.
An ethernet plug-in connection should not be slow.
I still use the iconic AOL, and why not?--just what is your problem with AOL??
Nice article. Enjoyed reading all the comments. Thank you.
Great essay. Totally unthinkable a mere 50 years ago.
Those of us in “the real world” can’t truly appreciate this kind of tranquility. But it’s the people in this piece that are literally in “the real world”.
We are far, far from it.
Forever.
Shhh!
The first of four characteristics that I identify in my book (Not So Fast: Thinking Twice About Technology) as fundamental elements of the nature of technology: "Technology is by nature expansive...Technological development proceeds steadily from what it has already transformed and used up toward that which is still untouched.”
Terrific piece, as always here goes the Congress and etc cutting funding for intellectual curiosity and "thinking people". After living and working in DC for 35 plus years as a tech consultant I am sure that I would be crazed about the absolutely minimal outlay, absurd to the overall federal budget %, cuts that some genius has made to not support this cool effort to listen in on the universe. If one looks over the ridicules federal budget line items and what is kept or not, and how arbitrary the process is for deciding, you will go nuts. Shows what happens to a state when the political power shifts.
You can do it by not taking your phone with you. Sorry your work brings you into flyover country, but that's your choice. It ain't the Internet that is bad for me. Noise is worse, as are multitudinous crowds. Cities need to seriously think of banning all ICE vehicles simply for the noise they bring.
If you read the comments here, you get a mini newsfeed. People like to talk about themselves. Or other people. Or TV/shows. There is nothing else. You need to seek adventurous souls that are willing to talk about ideas. Argue and debate without taking it personally or getting angry. There ain't so many folks like that...anywhere. I feel lonely in crowds, because I know none are like me. I blame the mediocrity of this culture in America.
Lovely piece. What we need is a Murphy Bed construct for our cell phones. When needed the bed is available when Not is is out of sight. And please mairebdark sky spaces. Perhaps like neighborhood parks some day.
Phantastic photography! Fits the narrative!I will use the article for my students (in photography) as an example for perfect combination of text and photo, thanks t
This is way cool. Too bad you couldn't open a resort there with the hook that you are off the grid, because you couldn't trust people to adhere to the rules.
Thank you for putting this point of view forward, and so eloquently.
My regrets to the people who live in these off-line/off-grid zones, who will soon have to content will hoards of vacationing New Yorkers tryoing to "find" themselves.
1
Beautiful writing. Loved the way you connect the external (environment) and internal (mind) Quiet. Thank you.
My wife scoffs when I "threaten" to move off the grid. I live on the Upper East Side and work in midtown - am I as "on the grid" as is humanly possible. She may be right, but I suspect a part of her is worried I could actually pull it off, having grown up in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in the 1970s. For me it would just be "going home again" to disconnect.
It's sad that more people don't have the self discipline it takes to disconnect from the electronic world and have to resort to seeking out remote locations. They blame the device and not themselves. It's the same lack of discipline which brings so many other hardships into peoples lives. We live, yet we don't always learn.
5
You don't have to go to W. Va to find where the internet and cell service comes to an end. Just go 100 miles northeast of NYC to the Catskills. Lack of government regulation requiring access to internet and cell service have served to increase the economic divide.
1
It's interesting reading the comments to this article, the big con of so many people here equating the internet with Plato's Cave and that getting offline is getting back to reality, or that being on the internet is equated with ungovernable impulse and that to be offline is to get back to reason, or that being online is being unable to resist the temptation of a quick hit of feel-good brain chemicals and that to get offline is to apparently master temptation and a type of chemical addiction. It's all a big con because what these people mean most of all is that people they disagree with should get off the internet, that people they disagree with are perpetuating shadows on Plato's cave wall or are merely emotional, unable to resist temptation, or are under sway of chemicals in their brains akin to drug addicts.
It's obvious in modern society that getting off the internet provides no safety for a person, it's just to be cut off from the cutting edge of civilization, and that to be on it is to engage in such a fierce battle of viewpoints that one will be subject to any number of cons, hackings, mental manipulations, and be classified by any number of people in the simplest and crudest ways possible, even considered completely without the capacity to reason. In short, plenty of the commenters here seem to think that millions of people have little capacity to reason and should be separated from the internet, the internet the new barrier between 'human animals' and humanity.
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“I came in hopes of finding a certain kind of wildness and solitude. I live in Massachusetts, and I often disappear into the forests and rivers to clear my head.”
In 1987, I packed up my car in Los Angeles and headed to Massachusetts for precisely the same thing. I began in Cambridge for the summer school course that was the initial reason for the trip but knew I’d want to stay longer to experience life on the opposite side of the continent. I had daydreamed of walking through falling firey leaves and building wood fires in the depth of snowy winters. Within weeks of arriving, as if some great alignment of Universal energies had occurred, I met an herbalist who lived in the Berkshires. I moved there to study and work with her for a few years. Everything I had dreamed about life in the woods came true.
What began as youthful rebellion against a shallow concrete world fixated on entertainment turned into lifelong enchantment with the solitude of the New England woods. I return annually but now cellular signals penetrate deep into rural wild areas. I was a little sad the first time I realized it but now I just turn off my phone or leave it behind when walking through the woods. As long as I can see the sun, I can always find my way back.
This was a beautiful essay with stunning photography. I’ve bookmarked it for my next road trip across the upper Midwest.
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@left coast finch
I didn’t proofread before submitting my comment and only now realized upon reading the NYTimes notification email that I wrote “upper Midwest” instead of West Virginia. I had just reviewed the notification email of my comment to the story yesterday on racism in Minnesota and it stuck in my brain.
I’ve only driven through West Virginia once on my way elsewhere (a lovely drive I might add) and this story has me thinking I need to spend a little more time there next time. Thanks again for sharing it with us.
I live in a woods where my house has a landline and electricity. Only my studio in its separate building has wifi and occasional cell service. I work there and use these technologies for work. At any moment, though, I can step outside to hear silence, birds, wolves, coyotes, the wind in the trees. I am three miles from the ocean and on a heavy seas day, the surf pounding the shore reaches through those three miles of woods. I brace myself when I go Outside, our name for anywhere but Alaska, because there I find no silence. We have no streetlights or stoplights and can walk by starlight in the dark of night. Such peace passes my understanding but not my calm enjoyment.
1
There is a reason that our best most effective telescopes that search the universe are on tops of mountains aka Mauna Kea in the middle of oceans or deserts Atacama or in rural areas aka West Virginia, Arizona and New Mexico.
Humanity leaves an interfering radiation signature across the light spectrum.
8
It is easy to romanticize an unplugged life if you don't actually live it on a daily basis. I was in the country on useless copper wire dial up for Internet, landline phone only, no TV except one channel over the air, for years. We geographically could not connect and satellite dishes were too costly. The disconnect and isolation from information and news was a hardship for our family, and we slowly developed an extraordinary parochialism and became much more conservative. If you want to understand rural America, part of the story is limited connectivity and its impacts on daily and long term quality of life. I am not surprised that when connection arrives, folks quickly start to live in Internet bubbles and far-right websites.
We live in town now, but learned important values from our 15+ years with limited Internet and media. We can't stand TV news and read newspapers of record for information. We still don't have cable, but enjoy streaming TV services that let us control what we watch. We still only have a landline phone, except for a burner flip phone for travel. The conveniences we give up are not worth the loss of skills and resilience we have for not relying almost exclusively on digital information. I have used GPS less than 6 times in my life, am a skilled map reader, love asking for directions, and thrill at the places we've discovered getting lost. It is all about balance and careful choices over technology and how we use it.
11
@M. Gerard best comment yet....
A paean to the past, albeit a beautifully written one. What does it say about many in our society who cannot enjoy quiet or disconnection from the internet unless someone or some circumstance imposes it upon them? The internet has immeasurably enriched my life, allowing me to work without a soul-crushing commute, giving me access to libraries, films, music, news and other information that I could never achieve in the physical world and multi-layered communication with friends and family. Without the internet I could not live in the place I go to be quiet, to immerse myself in natural beauty and to recharge my physical batteries. It’s all about maintaining balance.
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@Larry So true and I share the way you value the internet. But the children are growing up without the chance to have their brains develop in a more natural way, in a way the causes them to go inward and harvest the products of their own imaginations with out the interference of cheap, fast, and artificial images so easity seen online.
20
@Molly
To the extent that this is true, it is because parents are not limiting their access to phones and other devices. When my then-10 year old grandson visited last summer, the only thing I had to correct him about was getting off his iPod and enjoying something else like reading. Fortunately, he had also brought his own books.
13
@Barbara
I agree, but it is VERY difficult to limit kids' smart phone access, especially as it gets older. As a child who wasn't allowed to watch TV, I know the stigma and how much you miss if you don't share experiences that your peers do. So I do allow phones. But getting them to shut them off? Do you want to have a physical altercation with your tween or teen over a cell phone? Last winter in the Midwest, a boy died in a snowstorm -- running out of the house because his parents took away his phone. There are two parents and other adults in children's lives, and if parents disagree it's doubly hard. And kids can't stop themselves. Digital heroin is what I call it because -- it's designed to be addictive.
10
Very compelling piece of journalism, a balanced and insightful mix of reporting, commentary and photojournalism. My first instinct was to write a short glib comment along the lines of “There is an off button, you know.”
As i kept reading, i was pulled in by the gentleness of the writing and the subtle way the photographs invite inspection. Kennedy slides her observations across the table, gesturing to take as much as you like, or none. Soon, I was reflecting on my own life before our continuous connectedness. The all-day bike rides as a kid with my mother having no idea where we were or when exactly we’d be home, or even what road to drive down to look for us if we were late. The once-a-week calls home from the dorm pay phone which soon became once-a-month, maybe. The focus on the task at hand, whether work or pleasure, without interruption, providing a continuum from inception to achievement.
Those were seen as simpler days and that time is past. But Ms. Kennedy highlights that while those times are gone, those feelings, that ability to look up into the sky or to meet another’s gaze, remain available. In the hyper-connectedness of today, the universal all-access pass can be overused leading to damage of that which we seek, but the ability to disconnect electronically and reconnect directly remains.
There is an off button, you know.
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@Medium Rare Sushi
That's like telling a crackhead to just say no.
7
Bet u miss the CARD CATALOGUE in the library! ( shhhhhhh)
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@Medium Rare Sushi
"There is an off button, you know."
or is there?
6
Just returned from a few days with very limited connections, agree it's refreshing. However, it's time for users to realize we're being used by companies banking ( literally ) on the fact that we can't unplug. Just do it. There is an off switch. Look at people. Chay. Draw. Journal with a pen. Reclaim quiet and intimacy.
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@Granny, I agree 100%. Then phone has an "off" button. Use it. Leave it on the kitchen table and get in the car and drive. Are people so weak that they have to go to Whoknowswhere to be forced to not use their device(s)? I pack a sketch pad everywhere. I don't use it all the time but it is there. Pull up by the water, cheap cup of coffee in the console, with a 7-11 brownie at the ready. Turn off the phone, grab the sketch pad and think. You might sketch, you might not. You might do one line. You might dream a bit. But you did turn off that damned phone.
6
Getting off the grid and returning to nature and to solitude is something our souls need. As someone who moved to a rural area for peace, I totally agree. Unfortunately, I also need to make a living and my inability to reliably access the internet is a problem. I would love to have the choice of turning it on or turning it off. Right now, that is not an option for me and my income is suffering to the extent that we may need to return to the noise and bustle of the city to makes ends meet.
We now live in human-made world that is an approximation of nature. We live in what a French philosopher called "The Society of the Spectacle."
Nature, its night-sky of blinking stars, its many forms of silence, it's moods, yellow, red and black, are replaced by iPhone photographs of nature, by movies like "Finding Nemo," trucks and cars branded as broncos and foresters. We are more satisfied by the representations of wild animals, forests, stars, and silence than the real thing. It is as if we are afraid of reality.
Think of Yellowstone Park's Old Faithful geyser. Think of the millions of iPhone photographs that have been taken of this hot pocket of water when it erupts. Is it possible to see Old Faithful without making a spectacle of it?
7
I recently did a hiking trip in an extremely remote area for 12 days where there wasn't a drop of service or wifi. I ended up getting engaged during the trip and I feel so lucky that we were able to keep such an intimate moment private between my partner and I. There was no pressure to get on the phone to tell our friends and family immediately afterwards because the phones didn't work. We lose out on the present moment and on real human connections so much because we are attached to these devices.
1
I love that there is still radio quiet somewhere in the country. We should work towards reducing night-time light, and we should work towards reducing sounds, too, but that gets harder as roads and flight paths spread farther into our bits of wilderness.
But rather than travel to places where your phone is quiet, do yourself the favor of retraining yourself. Turn it off now and then. Control yourself and don't turn it back on. Humanity made it all the way to over 6 billion people without having to be connected 24/7 by addictive little computers. So shut it off now and then and restore your own solitude.
5
I quit social media about 6 years ago because of a very similar experience to what the author describes with the "No Trespassing" sign -- I kept seeing wonderful, fascinating, beautiful things and immediately began composing what I should write for the Facebook post that surely needed to follow. One day I caught myself doing this and realized I did not like how my brain was working. For me, quitting the interwebs altogether is not an option, but reducing its toxicity by purging some of the more crack-like aspects helped a lot.
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@Scott H. I thought I was the only one who mentally composed facebook posts in my offline time. Now that I'm aware of this habit, I ask myself, "who is this post really for?" I'm trying to go back to the "old fashioned" way of telling individual friends via email when I see or think of something that I think they'd enjoy. It's a way to show I'm thinking of them, rather than tossing my thoughts into the facebook void where they may or may not be seen and appreciated.
17
@Scott H. I'm with you on this. In a way we let a corporate entity, Facebook, take over part of our thinking, and FB gets to there live rent free.
5
We camped recently at Coolidge State Park in Vermont where there was (marvelously) no cell phone service. And we've camped at Erving State Forest near Orange, MA, where there was also no cell phone service. It's a great thing to do, really helps you experience where you are without distractions. Another big benefit? Generally there's no light pollution so the night sky is there to see in all its beauty.
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These types of stories always bring me back to Ray Bradbury’s book “Fahrenheit 451” and the sanctuary found in the end...in the woods. Fascinating.
9
@Bernard Farrell
I was at the top of Mount Mitchell, the highest point on the East coast, a couple of weeks ago. Even there, I found I had cellphone service. Wow!
5
Up until 6 years ago, we lived where there was no cell service. Now we get 1 or 2 bars of 4G. Visitors on their way to our place used to be happy to proclaim to their office they were really truly going out of range without service but there was a copper land line number and a fax machine. The best part was the connected youth and those under 30. The dazed bewildered look took about 3 days to wear off. After that, they discovered talking to other humans, reading a hard bound book or just watching the dragonflies and hummingbirds was fun.
200
I love the juxtaposition.
Scientists use the Green Bank observatory to find science fiction in outer space.
But the local residents view the modern world, beholden to technology, as science fiction here on earth.
Great article...thank you!
5
Nice essay. I’ve divided my life between large cities and the country. When I miss the pre-internet world, it’s always the pre-internet city that I miss.
The country hasn’t changed that much physically. But technology has changed the face of the city. A big part of the appeal of living in a city was access to information. I used to have a store selling newspapers and magazines from all over the world two doors from my apartment. There were newsstands every few blocks, often selling scores of publications, things that one might actually read carefully instead of skimming & forwarding. Now they sell junk food & lottery tickets. I used to be able to visit an uncountable number of bookstores, each with different specialties, many in walking distance. More importantly, I could believe that these sources of information represented an array of perspectives, produced with varying but clear standards, instead of being produced without standards, to provoke & gratify my impulses & prejudices. And of course people did not go about secluded in their own technological bubbles. The thing I regret most about technology is not that it won’t leave us alone, but that it isolates us from any sort of shared culture, separating us into bubbles where strangers are an intrusion, and dividing us into markets in which our interests & beliefs are winnowed & intensified.
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A few years ago I gave my nephew a movie CD I thought he’d like to watch with his roommates. He said, “We don’t have a tv. We watch movies on our laptops.” Yes, I felt that deep loss of “shared culture” his generation doesn’t even know it lost. Unfortunately, I realized it extends to music as well.
22
@Martin great point...thank you...
9
@Martin Amen! Your last sentence is priceless.
24
I loved the pictures that accompany this article, and thinking about the places pictured. But I disagree with the premise that working cell phones necessarily kill the experience of such places. I am not on social media, but I appreciate having a phone along with me because I am a woman who enjoys solitary travel. The phone makes me feel safer, both because I can call for help and connect with loved ones, and because of the mapping function that keeps me from getting seriously lost. With that added peace of mind, I enjoy travel more, not less. I tend to take pictures when I want to remember specific images precisely, but specific moments are for my memory, not my phone.
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@Junewell Thanks for mentioning this. For women everywhere who love solo travel, the phone can be a life saver. It's easy for those who have never had to use one for safety reasons to forget that.
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@Junewell
Agree with your assessment of the pictures. Absolutely stunning, and I'm guessing they were taken with real film, given the area's issues with digital technology. Disagree with your conclusions about cell phones. If you are in the middle of nowhere, as this place is, many miles from law enforcement, a cell phone won't help when and if the bogey man strikes. As for mapping, we've had maps many years, even centuries, before cell phones came about. Paper maps are as useful now as they were way back when, which is to say, plenty useful, particularly when combined with asking directions from locals. As for cameras, we, also, have had those for many years--ask Matthew Brady. Somehow, folks got along quite nicely before smart phones came about. I miss those days.
Cell phones have become pacifiers for adults. Really glad to see this story.
14
@Junewell this is part of what I now feel when I go out camping or backpacking with my Garmin InReach. It’s my security blanket when I need to get in touch with folks in society who are curious and care about what I’m doing.
4
When commercial radios were fist installed in cars in the 1930s, many thought it was madness that would cause carnage in the streets. They were right but radios remain and few saw them as a hazard even before they were able to compare them to using phones while driving.
The bar gets ever lowered as our technology evolves faster than we do.
2
Recently was traveling with my young son on a drive from rural South Dakota to Wyoming and Montana when we entered steep mountain terrain near dark. Suddenly our GPS went out. My son, who has never talked on anything but an iPhone panicked. "How will we find our cabin now?" he implored, wide-eyed. I told him we would simply pull off at the next tiny town and ask directions, a concept that seemed alien him. We did. Had a lovely chat with a local store owner and got to our cabin in time for a good night's sleep. I think it was the most educational moment of the entire trip for a young kid whose generation rarely unplugs.
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@John Jabo Paper maps work very well, therefore I always do trips with my paper maps. Saved a lot of anguish, when that GPS failed me. You also have more of a sense of your environment and direction.
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@John Jabo - "Suddenly our GPS went out."
Equipment failure or signal loss due to overhead obstruction or hills?
As GPS works with satellite I didn't think any internet was needed. And a feature of a dedicated GPS over a cell phone with a map app.
As the other Marie said I like maps too, because you can see the context of the trip. Not just a route. You know where you are with a map rather than a line on the screen. However the nice thing about that tracing point that tells you were you are on the screen is that sometimes it can reassure you that you made the right turn when the road is somewhat more ambiguous than you expected and or there are no signs.
17
@MarieNo clue why it went out, but the iPhone was later fine. So I would guess it was the high peaks on both sides of the valley we were driving through.
5
Blaise Pascal — 'All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.'
Technology has made this statement true x 500.
425
Bingo, LS !
Well quoted.
8
@LS
Yes but the heirs of primate apes that evolved evolutionary fit in Africa 300,000 years ago have reached 7.5 billion population and growing.
Humans are programmed by our DNA biological fit nature and nurture to crave fat, salt, sugar, water, habitat, kin and sex by any means necessary including conflict and cooperation.
Until the dawn of the last century humans use-by mortality date was 35-40 years.
All science and technology has costs and benefits.
From the discovery of how to make and use fire to how to make and use stone and wood tools there were and still are pluses and minuses.
9
@LS
And none of the cures for a a myriad of human problems have come from someone sitting quietly in a room. Some claim a bone flute(music) was invented to stop neanderthals from fighting. We didn't start out sitting quietly in a room.
2
Last I heard, not one citizen has been REQUIRED to connect to the internet. You can be out there alone, if you really want it (hope you're completely prepared for any eventuality.) For the rest of us who live in rural areas, get us connected, or better connected!
5
@ChesBay
And yet, some organizations require you to use Facebook to get information about their activities, and periodically schemes are mounted for making monetary transactions cellphone dependent.
Really excellent photography, well presented.
5
The far side of the moon would be a nice quiet spot for a radio telescope.
We live in a canyon with no cell service and, although we have internet, we don’t have cable TV or streaming services. We like to read. When we travel, we do marvel at the stuff that comes out of the TV. ‘OFF’ is a good setting.
We aren’t Luddites, and I make my living from the entertainment industry, computers and consequently networks. But quiet is very pleasant.
6
@ThePB
Luddism is a respectable philosophy with a pro-labor history.
1
Stunning, evocative prose and photography. Thank you. I'd like to suggest one can get wonderfully lost in the city, too. On a recent trip to Boston, I accidentally left my phone in the hotel on the outskirts of town. I spent much of the day doing what my dad used to call 'people watching.' Creating stories for young lovers, mothers with new babies, and lone wanderers like myself. I stopped friendly strangers for directions, and got into a fine conversation with a college student sharing my park bench. At the European restaurant where I dined alone, I asked to use their phone to call a Lyft, and chatted in French with the hostess at the front desk as I waited to be picked up. It was a memorable day of both connection and introspection. Teachers wanting their students to experience the Allegory of the Cave should send them into the world for a day, sans phone.
22
Maybe the author could just move to our rural community, 30 miles from a large metro area, where cell reception is minimal or spotty and guests are unable to use their phones. We had to buy an in-home device so we could at least use our phones in the house instead of standing in the rain by the garbage can if we wanted 2 bars.
4
Great writing, and wonderful photos- thank you both!
6
One more thing.....I have the ability to unplug my laptop and turn off my cell phone. What I cannot turn off is the constant noise - lawn mowers, weed whackers, leaf blowers, trucks rattling by, planes flying overhead - that pervades my neighborhood all day almost non-stop. The only time it quiets down is when it rains. Being connected all the time is proving unhealthy, but, honestly, I think the constant racket we are subjected to is a problem that’s just as significant.
103
@WesternMass
Thanks for this comment. Some commenters seem to have been distracted from the point about quiet—it isn't just about turning off your tech and being able to control your own mind. It isn't just about attention span. If sonic, electrical, and physical phenomena interfere with scientific instruments, how are they affecting the physics of our bodies and minds?
4
An Interesting glimpse at the essential paradox of science: the inevitable tension between the purity of fundamental research and the complex consequences of applied science.
But the most interesting observation is psychological: "shutting off my cellphone and observing an “internet sabbath.” But that has never worked for me". It seems that in the battle between impulse and reason - impulse (or passion) wins. Our "willpower" is weak and we need external constraints to live reasonably.
8
I live a two mile hike from roadless wilderness in the Mountain West. There are no towns in these areas, no cars or even bicycles. You walk in or ride a horse.
However, I carry a device that can alert emergency responders. It uses the satellite phone system.
1
To find real solitude in the U.S., to escape phenomenons such as the internet, you have to go out of range, go to places such as the National Radio Quiet Zone, Green Bank W.Va., the radio telescopes of Green Bank Observatory?
Talk about a contradiction, a piece of irony, a truly American joke and routine joke for coming century. To escape the internet not to mention surveillance, to find solitude, crouch under the most sensitive ears in the nation. It's like the old joke about building a town on the side of a volcano or the small animal which runs into the larger animal's mouth to find refuge.
The ears grow more sensitive, more profound, and the less likely are you able to transmit, have a voice, the more you seek solitude, try to get out of range of internet, listening ears, electronics. It's extremely telling, demonstrating our age is not so much one of free speech, increased noise, but one of increasing hearing, signal determination and processing like never before. Of course the easiest way to cut through noise, determine signal, is to cut down on free speech, clamor of voices.
But things might not be so bad, in fact it's the radio telescopes which might save us from a surveillance society: All the effort expended to intercept hopefully an extraterrestrial message, a higher intelligence, might lead simultaneously to accuracy in determining actual intelligence in the noise of earth, might cut through politician's and the masses' chatter, set us on footing for stars.
4
I've recently done some week long rafting trips and without access to technology of any kind can actually feel my brain rewiring itself to normalcy. It feels like going home more than going home after the trip does.
9
I enjoy the outdoor experience of hearing nothing other than birds chirping and wind blowing through the aspen forests. But that silence has become frequently interrupted by people chatting on their cell phones or listening to music, sans earbuds. That intrusion reminds me that there are many people who are unable to disconnect and quiet their minds. Why the need to chat on your phone with your friend about last night’s dinner while hiking in the mountains? I worry about our society when you don’t open yourself up to the possibility of having a conversation with someone you come upon on the trail, or the constant need to be stimulated by our electronic devices.
9
There are a lot of reasons to enjoy wilderness and to try to create more of it in order to preserve the wild and the species who live in it. But not having enough will power to simply turn off your phone and do something else is hardly a reason to burn gasoline to reach a spot that's past the borderline of internet connectivity. My son, who hikes, subscribes to a service that provides an emergency beacon by which he can call for help if he's injured and unable to hike back out to the trailhead. Connectivity has value. So does will power.
10
@Karen H
OMG, I thought the exact same thing!
What is wrong with people that they can't control their conflicting desires for peace and solitude and the internet?
Enjoy solitude, even in NYC it's possible - just don't turn on the TV, computer or phone. Read a book or take a walk.
Is the world really only made up of 14 year olds???
One more reason to put the phone down and limit it for children is the report in yesterday's Times about how children are growing bone spur type horns on the back of their heads from phone use.
PUT THE PHONE DOWN!!! But keep it handy for emergencies.
3
@Karen H
OMG, I thought the exact same thing!
What is wrong with people that they can't control their conflicting desires for peace and solitude and the internet?
Enjoy solitude, even in NYC it's possible - just don't turn on the TV, computer or phone. Read a book or take a walk.
Is the world really only made up of 14 year olds???
2
Pagan, you describe existentialist angst in this paragraph. You need to read your Sartre.
"Sometimes, pulling my phone out of my pocket, I feel the way I do when I’m standing on the rooftop of a tall building, like maybe some impulse will send me hurtling into the air. It’s glorious, to be equipped with all of this magic and danger every moment of the day. It’s also exhausting."
5
Others have noted that the author can simply turn off her phone, or leave it in the car or at home. Although she claims that is really hard, it's not.
For years, I have been telling my friends that when I retire, I will call the office one last time from the deck of my sea kayak and say my farewells. "And the last sound you'll hear will be the splash of my cell phone hitting the water."
Solitude, including freedom from the corrosive nagging of electronic gadgets, is essential. I have taken a number of wilderness trips of a week or more, by canoe or kayak. The kind of places we frequent probably don't have great cell reception anyway, although a friend once brought a phone for its GPS feature. The rest of us persuaded him to leave it at the trailhead parking lot, and taught him how to use a map and compass. No bars necessary, no batteries to wear out. The compass never makes a sound. And to figure out where you are, you actually LOOK AT where you are, as opposed to staring at a screen in the palm of your hand.
We invented technology to serve us. We do not exist to serve it. Sometimes technology's highest and best use is to simply get out of the way, and let the humans do the thinking.
16
@alexander hamilton. Indeed. When there is a lull in activity, out comes the cell phone....this is a choice! There are also settings, like turning off notification sounds, that can make it less intrusive. Personally, I have a small phone. It is hard to type on, and therefore only worth using when an have a particular need. I am much less tempted to use it to fill time.
1
@alexander hamilton
I like the idea, but please don't pollute the oceans by sinking your phone.
1
This piece really resonated with me. I spent my career in IT and now that I’m older and retired I’ve become acutely aware of the negative and destructive aspects of the technology I started loving so much back in the late 1980’s. We have gained much by all of this ‘connectedness’ but we have also lost much, too, as the author has illustrated so well. I, too, have found respite from it all in camping in my RV. A cell signal exists, but that’s about it, and the phone goes off when I go there unless on some rare occasion I absolutely have to make a call. It’s liberating and perspective-restoring, and more people should regularly put themselves in situations like that whenever they can. Read a book, play a game with your family, talk, take a walk in nature, go fishing. It’s all good medicine to counter the effects of all this tech and restore a little balance.
8
Very enjoyable story, but I'm going to pick up and run a bit more with the thread from one of the early paragraphs --- the admission that yes, rural America needs to be connected. There isn't a whole lot of discussion here of what most of the people in Green Bank do for work (I mean, I assume some of them work at the observatory, and we meet a few folks like the convenience store cashier, but beyond that). In rural Vermont, we still have a fair number of small towns that have little to no cell service. And it's not doing those communities a favor -- quite to the contrary, it's holding them back. It's a factor in young people's decisions to move away and get started in the workforce elsewhere, or to not come home after finishing their educations. It's causing potential newcomers to decide to go elsewhere because they can't do their jobs without being connected.
It's true that we're hooked on technology, and we have to find ways to create space for quiet. But letting small rural communities slowly die on the vine (not just for this reason, but it's one of them) isn't the way. Protect woods and wilderness from signal where we can, because yes, we all need a break from this cacophony. But it's also what pays the bills. So towns, even tiny ones, need Internet and cell service.
14
Big Sur, California, is another Quiet Zone. No internet, cell phone coverage, no tv, not even phones in the cabins. The idea is to soak up one of the most beautiful places on earth. I have seen some absolutely lived people when they find out (even though the web sites make this clear). Such a shame. Why would want to watch tv or surf the internet when nature beckons?
5
@Kb
Big Sur is stunning, jaw-droppingly so, and one of those California scenes whose ethereal beauty brings tears to my eyes. I can’t imagine needing anything but air, food, and water when I’m there. However, time is another real need because there’s never enough of it. I can’t imagine wasting one second of it on electronics because I hate the day I have to pull out onto Highway 1 and head south.
I’m glad to hear Big Sur is a Quiet Zone. Long may it be so.
3
@Kb, it is? Huh, did not realize this and just drove through the area coming back from Santa Cruz a couple of weeks ago. But then again for those folks living in Big Sur they simply need to drive down the road a wee bit to get the connections. Nothing like those giant redwood trees for framing a peaceful day with cell phones shut off.
1
My goodness, this was a wonderful piece, and the accompanying photos were perfect. I'm turning 50 this year, so I spent my childhood in the analog 1970s. Each passing year makes it harder to remember life before - before cell phones, before the internet, before being constantly connected. I won't say it was better, but it was definitely more spacious. There was space to wander, to get lost, to anticipate and to wonder.
As a teenager, listening to records in my bedroom in the 80s, I used to dream about what it would be like to have instantly available music. Like, what if I read about some amazing song, then boom! it was on my record player (instead of having to special order it from the record store and waiting for weeks)? Now that the magical day has arrived, I'm not so sure something valuable hasn't been lost in the translation. When everything is so easily accessible, nothing is precious anymore.
I often think we're living in a strange magical bubble in time - between catastrophes, between extinctions. We've been allowed to grow and flourish in magical ways. I wonder how far we'll go before we too vanish.
40
@Cloud Hunter
“...I spent my childhood in the analog 1970s...I won't say it was better, but it was definitely more spacious. There was space to wander, to get lost, to anticipate and to wonder.”
Beautifully put and perfectly described. I was there too and share your feelings. These are magical times.
7
I once thought maybe we need a new set of manners when it comes to cell phones. When it’s a family dinner or holiday, everyone has to check their cell phone in a basket at the front door. But then who runs the music or takes the photos?! Ugh.
6
@RVB
For photos you could go to an antique store and buy a thing called a camera.
Who needs music when there's that other thing called Conversation? Ugh.
As someone who once had to drive several miles to get a cell phone signal to summon an ambulance in a medical emergency when our ill maintained land line failed cutting off all communications voice and data, I can attest that being "off the network" is no benefit.
It is one thing to turn off one's electronic connections to the outside world it is entirely another to be cut off from help because of corporate greed in not maintaining land lines and not providing reliable cellular service.
Having a loved ones life hanging in the balance of obtaining a cellular signal or getting a dial tone or ethernet connection is no picnic and not a benefit.
11
@Richard From Massachusetts
Absolutely correct that it's one thing to take a vacation from cell phone use and quite another not to be able to access it when needed.
In Potomac, Montana, there is a cell tower and there was cell coverage, and then, due to disputes between the owner of the tower and the cell provider in the area, cell coverage was cut off. Blackfoot telephone land lines are still available, but service isn't always reliable.
3
@Richard From Massachusetts9 - You just explained why internet service should be a public utility. As Emeril Lagasse might say, "Crank it up a notch." There is a higher expectation . We expect running water, electricity (a federal program "electrified" rural areas, without which, the giant observatory couldn't work), etc. Now we expect internet access as a basic resource. Good.
6
@Richard From Massachusetts
In the aftermath of Hurricane Ike in Houston, only the landlines worked. And yet now we are not able to get one because companies have adopted all-wifi tech.
3
While un-imagined just a couple of decades ago, meaningful internet access is now viewed as a right. The way we treat our most rural citizens with regards to this will speak volumes about how much we value their input into our society.
As far as unplugging and choosing not to access cell/internet, that's one of those "freedoms" we have. As we prepare to leave for camping next week, I'm very much looking forward to the deep connection time with my family with our phones off for a week.
5
We camp a lot too. Plenty of time intentionally spent in areas coincidentally lacking cell phone service.
What’s the big deal?
I recently went on a similar journey to the Nevada desert, while we still had GPS the lack of cell service was both scary and enlightening. I noticed that when we stopped at places people were more interested in what we were doing, where we were going and curious about our general travels. Took me back to my youth when you could roll into a towns gas station, ask what there is to do. Now its just an awkward quite interaction with a clerk who is usually on their phone and a glance at google maps for nearest watering hole.
4
The photo of the worker on the Robert Byrd telescope impressed me to no end.
I had no idea anything like that existed. A truly mind expanding article for me.
Thank you for making my day and taking my mind off Yemen, Ebola and Women’s World Cup Soccer !
14
I coined the Outdoor Triad for wilderness, completely dark skies, and quiet so profound one can hear the pulse in their ears. It is a place so easily disturbed that I hesitate to say where these few places are, for they are disappearing. What I do know is when I leave the jumping off point, use paddle or pack to get deep into the wilderness, I am better for it.
My highways are lakes and rivers; my vehicle is at most a canoe, otherwise my feet; my weatherman is noting the wind and the sky; my evening show sunset and the starry sky, the night watchman a distant owl, and my wake up call a nearby raven.
It's not for most people, but it has worked for me the past seven decades.
18
When one engages in a wistful moment the question is what is your starting point? Ms. Kennedy starts at the pre-cell phone time period, but that is an arbitrary decision. Why not long for those days when people didn't have houses and lived in caves? To some, at some point in history, surely that would be their nostalgic moment. Longing for the freedom of not having to paint the house! One day someone will long for the joy of the long forgotten smart phone.
4
@tbs Yes. When access is encrypted into every human being, we will look back longingly on the days of mystery and freedom we have now. Funny thought, but that must be where this is all going.
Sounds so good to be disconnected, but is it?
We travel to many of the desert areas of our country, camping and hiking. We have been doing that for years. We frequently are in places with no cell signal.
We love the isolation and solitude.
BUT, we also need access to the world, for emergencies. During our last trip we were without access to any signal, so even our cell phone wouldn't work. Fortunately, we had purchased a satellite phone for emergencies (only--just our son had the number) because we got a call from our son that our home had experienced a serious wind storm and the roof was damaged.
We had to travel 6 hours to get a signal to contact a roofer.
So, even our idyllic times in the desert are much better when we have some type of access to the world. We can have this peace because emergencies happen in peoples' lives, and we would want to know if someone got ill, for example.
@Travelers--Well, not so very long ago we all understood and accepted that if bad things happened while we were traveling, we would not know about them until we got home. Emergencies have always happened in people's lives -- it's only since the invention of the smartphone that we've started to assume we HAVE to know about them instantaneously. I'm not sure that's a gain, overall.
The damage to the roof was done. Your son could have managed quite fine. The call undid your hiatus. We all got along fine without the tether prior.
1
What is something came along that stole away virtually all of a person's time, even interrupting critical moments like being out on a date with a potential spouse or awaiting the birth of a baby? Something that went with them everywhere they went and through which they received more or less constant messages that, while unimportant, nonetheless they felt compelled to read and respond to? This thing also took away all quiet time and the ability to be alone with your thoughts.
Of course, it is here, right now.
What is bizarre is how eagerly and universally we submit ourselves to the dictates of the phone in our pockets or purses. Anything you need, phone, I am right here to give you.
We can't deny the phone anything. It's the boss, we are the puppets always looking down, tuning out the world around us, ignoring those pesky things walking around...what are they, people? Yuck.
I am a technology consultant, mainly dealing with networking and implementation of newer, complex technologies. I've been focused on the future and the possibility of computers and networking since high school days, a time when there were no practical personal computers. Yet, I am appalled by what we are allowing technology to do to our lives.
I limit what I do on the smart phone and don't care that the internet is always available. There is no practical need most of the time to constantly look things up. Don't text all the time, either. FREEDOM from bother and nuisance is available, if you want it.
33
Did the author ever consider not bringing a phone on vacation, throwing her phone away, or just turning it off?
And don't say it's not that simple, because it is.
29
@get real She discusses turning off her phone here:
In theory, I could achieve this kind of freedom anywhere by shutting off my cellphone and observing an “internet sabbath.” But that has never worked for me — and I suspect it doesn’t for most other people either. Turn off your phone and you can almost hear it wheedling to be turned on again.
1
The difference between the 1980's and now: back then, one yearned for the weekend where one could be unavailable to demanding bosses or simply people you didn't want to hear from. Now anyone can call you anywhere at any time. And people start exhibiting withdrawal symptoms if deprived (even for an hour at a funeral) from their precious cell phones and social media. Once people valued privacy; now people feel unfulfilled if they are not sharing intimate details of their lives with practically anyone. Now people are so distracted by their phones that some forget and leave their babies in broiling cars or jump in front of subway cars to retrieve a dropped cell phone.
16
People who know you make very few calls now. That is the text message mode. For the first 15 years of widespread celtel, there was little telemarketing and such , then of recent, it has become an onslaught of robot dialing using contrived phone numbers IDs.
1
@Eli
And college teachers can't allow phones or computers in classes or no one pays attention.
1
Now, in regards to internet/cell-quiet places I find it remarkable how many patches of no service there are within 25 miles of Boston. Lately the MBTA tried to upgrade the cell service along the commuter rail lines where there exist gaps in service in what people would think of as populated areas. But local resistance to the towers ended that. The 'dark' areas remain where you cannot use your phone or get a internet signal.
As you drive away there are places in more rural areas and beaches where cell service is non-existent. In fact in the shark attacks last year it was an issue in calling 911 to come to the aid of the victims on the beach. "My" own beach in Harwich with cottages around it has virtually no service.
There are places where I go where there roads and houses but not enough signal to make or receive a call. I imagine it is the same for the people who live there. And naturally, as others have pointed out, you don't have to go hundreds or thousands of miles to find areas of no service. However they aren't completely quiet zones as the subject of the article. They are just accidents, or leftovers, or no one cares.
I just wish airplanes could be one of those quiet zones.
2
I don't know about every year it's harder to find real solitude.
One of the reasons so many rural and farmers continue to use land line service is because there are no cell towers or transmitters in the area. At least with a land line phone, they are able to call in case of an emergency. There are a lot of places in Wisconsin (north of Milwaukee) in which our cell phone does not work, especially in northern Wisconsin.
Frankly, whenever my husband and I travel to various sections in northern Wisconsin, he is annoyed but I am relieved and happy that we can't usually find service. His face is not always glued to his i-Phone screen and whenever we need directions or help, there is always someone around, willing to help and assist.
But then again, I also have a great sense of safety knowing that we have that "On Star" feature in our car, just in case we need it. It never hurts to have a backup plan in one's hip pocket.
3
I am curious about why the USA's National Science Foundation thought Green Bank telescope was no longer necessary and significantly reduced its funding. In the Murchison region of Western Australia, which is also a radio quiet spot, one of the worlds largest radio telescopes has been built - the Very Large Array or VRA. The authors are correct in saying that technology has made it easier to communicate but often harder to get a connection...and this should also not happen with this planets connection with the cosmos.
8
Several years ago after 16 years I left a town of several hundred in the Colorado Rockies for a small city in NC. I needed a place where there was closer to family, doctors closer than sixty miles away and activities would fill my retired life That former ghost town was a place where one car was a traffic jam, bears, elk and mountain lions wandered the streets and the milky way was truly a river of milk. And so quiet a soft breeze was a racket.
Yes this small city has everything I wanted, travelling Broadway shows, concerts, great health care and beautiful beaches as well as a perch closer to my elderly mother. It is possible to find stillness here, but you need to work at it. I miss those mountains and valleys and especially the quiet, but not the mosquitoes that could eat you alive or the dust that penetrated everything after long droughts. Sometimes you needed to travel 10 miles to find cell service.
I have come to understand that there is no one perfect place despite our desire for heaven. Being alive always requires trade offs and adapting to change especially the procession of years. Darn it.
14
A lovely piece. Thank you.
25
We chose an isolated vacation spot: no phone service, no internet. And then we met one of the palapa owners who invited us to use his internet while he was gone. All we needed was his password and a place on his porch. A deserted beach where we didn’t think there were any other inhabitants turned out not to be true. Turns out everyone hiked up to Bill’s palapa for internet. It became the 21 st century meeting place.
We couldn’t last the week without a connection.
2
I was camping with my daughters about 3 years ago, near Brevard, NC, and one daughter had cell service (Verizon) while I didn't (Sprint). So my half-joking suggestion is to sign up with a company that has good coverage in cities or where you need it and poor coverage in the mountains you like to visit. I have to admit I found it frustrating not to have service, especially when someone else did.
Or perhaps some company should offer that kind of service. Or a cheaper plan where minutes spent using the phone itself are limited, if that's technically feasible.
Some commenters will say that people should just exercise more self-control. But our self-control muscles are exhausted. I have heard our environment called "obesogenic": it encourages obesity. We are bombarded with advertisements that have been market-researched so that they hook us as much as possible (e.g. the camera lingering on chocolate pouring sensually). We know that app designers also use research against us and design reward structures (likes! points!) for maximum engagement, which means addictiveness, for the sake of profits.
People seem to have different levels of ability to resist the temptation of a quick hit of feel-good brain chemicals, but I bet everyone is affected to some degree. The individual is not 100% responsible, though. Neither is environment. Blaming either one entirely is not going to help people get free from harmful dependencies. And we do need that help, desperately.
8
Beautiful way to end the week, and also a very practical plea for the times we live in. I would fully support quiet zones in every state in the nation (and would move to one in a second if my income didn't depend on the Internet).
11
“I think people have lost the ability to be present with themselves.
So totally true. Ye I have internet, WiFi and a cell phone. I rarely use or answer the cell phone or event the land line. I live on a mountain in a silent neighborhood and love to just sit and listen to life. I have no problem with silence and think it would be good for more people. If my sons were born before all this crazyiness starte and if they had been born now I am pretty sure I would move to a place like in the article. Kids/people today have lost the ability to function on their own, as humans needing interaction with other humans.
8
Wonderful story and truly evocative photographs. Thanks.
11
I'm a big fan of solitude, and love being in areas where there's few signs of human existence. Hearing nothing but the sounds of the water and the wind and the animals is extraordinary.
But the internet is actually one of the easiest things to escape. Turn off your phone, leave your laptop in its case, and you're set. I escape the internet all the time, in the city, simply by choosing to not interact with it.
I've got news for you. Like any other drug, if you can't walk away from it for awhile for the sake of your own well-being, you've got a problem.
41
@Kristin
But if your job forces you to take the drug, you have a problem.
These days, if I am off the grid for more than 3 days, the people who work for me may not get paid, because I cannot even legally delegate the need to log in personally and click a certain box on some accounting web site to my assistant, and that is a BIG problem.
22
@Kara Ben Nemsi
We used to call it our "electronic leash." I think those of use who are forced to use the stuff professionally (a tool) have an entirely different view. I think those who don't understand how it works - see it as "magic" of sorts - are most easily indoctrinated/captured. It is a drug.
5
Good article and it makes me want to visit that area. But I disagree with the statement "The off grid places are disappearing, and that's as it should be" I think it's important that we retain some places where you can't be at the mercy of technology. People managed to cope just fine before cell service and internet technology came into being. We've been convinced that we cannot survive without being "connected" - mainly by the companies that profit from providing us with the gadgets and infrastructures that support those connections. Thanks to planned obsolescence, the latest technology will within a short span be deemed archaic and we will be forced to "upgrade" or perish. I have a laptop, an iPad and a cell phone (rarely used). I use them all, sometimes more than I need to. But staring at a gadget will never compare to sitting out on the deck at night looking at the stars, or in the early morning listening to the birds, or just sitting in silence breathing fresh air. We need places were we can do this for our own mental health and the healing of our souls. Especially these days, in a world seemingly gone mad.
10
Amazing photographs by Damon Winter. He's an artist. The author however is a puzzle. She has a neurotic relationship with her phone that could be helped with cognitive behavior therapy, or something. I don't understand how it warrants so many words here.
6
The article did not mention the "presence" of GPS signals or not... surely the satellite coverage exists even in this Bob Byrd zone? How do the radio telescopes handle the myriad mix of satellite signals?
BTW, there are vast regions in the SW with scant cell phone coverage. Back country fanatics often carry a emergency locator beacon that communicates with the satellites since there's no cell coverage.
4
@Taoshum
I would expect that these are "known" signals. Specific frequencies, specific locations in the sky at any point in time. As the the article suggests known signals can be accounted for and cancelled out. It is all the random noise that is the problem.
8
WHAT’s AN EMERGENCY LOCATOR BEACON? Geese, it’s a flood here around the corner from WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK:)) me guesses it helps if u R Half way up or down EVEREST. I am almost certain there are places ( and not just our imagination) where spaces like in this article remain.) UCSD library, for instance, looking like a rotating space vehicle from outside. At least that’s how I remember it in summer of 91. I drove there for the first time and was an alien from NYC. Wow! The sense of space and length of the ocean got me! NYC suddenly seemed a terribly small place... not connected in any way. One could call one’s answering machine and feel the East Coast was still in this universe:)) I HAD A PHONE in my dorm room, and 1 German student was delighted to call home ON MY EXPENSE! Them were the days...
@Taoshum I'm a backcountry fanatic and traveled with a primitive GPS w/ satellite communication for an extended backcountry trip with my husband in Alaska last year. We noticed others wanted periodic check-ins that we hadn't been eaten by bears yet; this made me cranky, but my husband (who is much less experienced in the outdoors) thought this seemed perfectly appropriate. It made me miss my backcountry trips from the '90s where we didn't have such things and just had to be prepared and smart ...and slightly lucky. I'm in my late 30s. Younger people we ran into in the backcountry clearly had no freaking clue how to use a map and compass and had their Garmins out the way others are attached to their phones.
I am tempted to be a curmudgeon about all this, but frankly have no evidence it is diminishing anyone's enjoyment. Although I have the feeling technology encourages people to enter the backcountry less prepared, and be less prepared in general, and more dependent... but if this encourages people to get out, maybe it's okay.
In my travels I pointed out a spectacular waterfall to a guy on a train, who's eyes were on his phone. He barely looked up. A few days later I was in a restaurant in another country and it was very busy and full of couples. All of them were staring at their phones. I asked the waiter why it was so busy and he told me it was Valentine's Day (while traveling I sometimes lose track of time). I looked around trying to find one couple looking into each others eyes and I couldn't. There is an off switch. I have a phone but no SIM card. People think I'm crazy....I don't miss it at all. I see waterfalls and all sorts of other things.
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@thewriterstuff
And people with window seats on airplanes no longer look out. Imagine how our pre-flight ancestors would feel it they knew we could actually see the earth from the sky--miraculous thing!--and yet we chose to opt out!
2
@jabber : I don't fly often, but am glued to the window when I do. I'm also amazed at how few other passengers are looking.
1
Even in Green Bank you hear planes, which are far more intrusive than cell phones or the internet, since you cannot turn them off. There are more aircraft than ever, and they are flying lower. Here on the formerly quiet North Fork of Long Island (no cell reception at my place at all, and no cable available either) the helicopters, seaplanes and incessant low-flying large jets mean one can often no longer hear birdsong, normal outdoor conversation, the waves on the beach or the wind in the trees. We are making our planet uninhabitable.
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@Paul Adams
Just wait until drones start delivering pizza, bulk dog/cat food and whatever else you would (not) like to imagine, to your/my/everyone’s neighborhood...
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@Paul Adams
and Amazon is planning to soon deliver by drones. The increase in noise will be that much worse.
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@Jack Smythe the weight limit for Amazon drone delivery will be 5 lbs or less.
RE: “I think people have lost the ability to be present with themselves”
I've described this as 'being'. Being there and being with yourself. I cherish those quiet alone times. And even here in Massachusetts and even in places where you'd never expect to find a quiet place, you can.
RE: “feel deeply free — no one’s watching; no one knows where I am.”
I've written about this in the same context as the article. That few of us are truly free any longer now that we have our phones and interconnected cars and trucks. We can be tracked and followed, often even when we think we've turned off the tech.
There was a time when we were all free to come and go as we wished without anyone else knowing - short of watching us do so. Then came On-Star and cell phones and now cars are as much networked computers as they are transportation devices. Many have come to accept, welcome even, the reassurances of being connected for safety and convenience at the cost of freedom without even noticing it. Some, especially the younger, never have experienced it. Experienced simply going a way because you didn't know where it was or where it would take you.
Of course there are plenty of old cars and trucks still around, but you have to leave the phone at home. Or at least turn it off, to be free. When did freedom start to feel a little bit naughty? Somewhat anti social? Is this how we give up the freedoms won in my backyard 240 years ago?
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My family has a place on an island in Maine that sits behind a granite cliff--that is, 'behind' relative to or hidden from any signal available from a relay tower, etc. We can't get Internet there for the life of us. There used to be a very weak, intermittent signal from a nearby relay station, but it was disabled/abandoned with no apparent plans to restore it. Drives my kids and wife crazy. To me, delightful. I can get back to focusing on my reading and the view.
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Guess what? Those cell phones come with off switches. Even in an area of great beauty that is flooded with cell phone signals, you don't have to be connected at all. All it takes is a little self discipline. I don't think that there's any virtue in being unable to get online. If there's any virtue to be found here it's in the strength to decide that you don't want to be connected, and simply don't connect.
I find it deeply ironic that the authors are celebrating enforced lack of communication at a site which is dedicated to connecting the entire planet to alien civilizations. If someday we discover an invitation from another civilization to connect, would the authors have us say, "No thanks, we're good", and hang up?
All of you praising this piece, you do realize that you're doing it through highly sophisticated, connected technology?
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@Clearheaded
But soon the sky will be covered with satellites and the utility poles with 5G and our refrigerators and washers will order stuff. And our tvs and cars will watch us. We should all reread 1984.
1
@betty durso at the beginning of Jan 2019 there were 4297 satellites orbiting the earth. That is an increase of 2.68% from 2018.
Very well written story with haunting photography. I gave up my cell phone about 10 years ago and haven't looked back. I don't envy the people I see who are constantly hunched over these devices, waiting for a validating ping from the outside world. It's even worse when I see couples in a restaurant, each lost in their own little worlds, ignoring the one right in front of them.
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@Sammy you only see a snapshot of that couple in the restaurant. There is room for companionable silence over a meal. You don't have to talk constantly to connect.
Stop judging couples who break out their cellphone - they may be recovering from a wild night of lovemaking or have spent earlier part of the day already talking. You don't know from a snapshot so don't bother feeling sorry for them or speculating on the nature or health of any relationship you see in public.
2
It would have helped immensely if the article were accompanied by a map of all major areas in the US with no cell phone service.
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@Yiannis P.
This would be a gift to every cell phone salesperson or company—they could use the map to go to every local government and tell them they are putting up a cell tower, and no one can stop them, per FCC rules (that’s my understanding). At least make them work to find out where the could add towers and service, don’t hand it to them for nothing!
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@Jack Smythe Yeah, the cell phone companies already know where they do and don't cover. And no, you can't just "put up a tower" willy-nilly -- local zoning laws are one limitation, approval if the tower is on public land are another.
Sorry, but there seems to be a bit of Luddite derangement syndrome in some of these comments.
@Yiannis P. think a quick online search could answer your question.
Another benefit of being disconnected is that we stop trying to control others' reactions. On social media, we are constantly trying to get "likes" and responses. I feel safer with a cell phone, but I also feel worse. Most of us who will comment on this piece lived during a time when we did not have phones with us 24/7. I was able to ride my bike and drive a car without any connection to either my family or friends. I was able to grow up with my own thoughts and not have them constantly assaulted by others. I don't have to go to the National Radio Quiet Zone to relive that experience. I just have to put down my phone for a while and remember.
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@Anthony
Bravo.
1
We love our off-the-grid cabin in Southern Vermont for three big reasons. With two cars traveling down our road being a busy day and no far off sounds from human activities, the quiet is delicious. There is no light pollution so the stars are fantastic. Most importantly is no cell service so there is no interruptions by the Interwebs.
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A few years ago my wife and I were on a road trip traveling through West Virginia to visit friends. We are not cell-phone people, and only carried an inexpensive flip-phone for emergencies, which was fine, until we hit WV. Then no service. Not a bar. We thought it was because our plan was inadequate, and were somewhat miffed at the company for not covering such a large area of the country. How can you not offer service to an entire state? Outrageous! Then we returned home and found out about the Quiet Zone and the Observatory. We do plan on returning some year in the fall to see the leaves change. The area is so beautiful and so very quiet. Now we know why.
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@Jerry Harris
I have lived in WV for 28 years. We have no cell phone service at our house and rely on satellite for internet. Our former governor Joe Manchin sold us out. Phone companies received big bucks and only served more populated areas. Those of us that live near only a neighbor or two are out of luck. On the other hand, I have no noise or light pollution here in Southern WV, and the sky is beautiful both day and night. 😀
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Wonderful, thoughtful piece about a place that progress seems to have bypassed, but for the 'scopes listening over distances that Hubble watches -- deep, deep space in an endless probe of darkness.
Forty years or so ago I belonged to a program in the Florida Keys where we sailed folks across Florida Bay to Everglades National Park at Cape Sable, often working out way north past Shark River to Lostmans and other wild places, the darkest in Florida. We sailed open wooden boats, thirty feet, a dozen folks per boat. When night fell, I was continually amazed by the astonished comments during "dark of the moon," the new-moon phase on clear winter nights with a north wind blowing. Stars overhead in all five magnitudes hung, twinkling diamond-like on a dome of midnight blue. People would often wax on about this in awe and eloquence, from sleeping bags under that dome of scattered gems -- I realized that many had never seen this before -- such a primitive sky. But reality was there for intrusion -- gazing east over the mangrove tops, the great glow of Miami loomed above the horizon like a firestorm, 75 miles off, reminding us of that world we'd recently left, and this strange place that incandescence avoided. Similar sky-shows dazzled months later in the same program in Downeast Maine, and twice the aurora borealis in a stunning display that kept folks up, gazing skyward long after they should have fallen exhaustedly asleep. Everyone should have this chance.
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@capnbilly
Beautiful comment.
I think you should write some articles!
I'm sure many people would love to hear more stories from you...
3
Wonderful article. While I was in technology for 50 years, I was an outdoorsman hiking and canoeing on weekends. I grew up and spent most of my life without a phone or WIFI . I tell people that for years in business it was paper maps and intuition to get to your destination. Horrors to drive your car, walk in woods without your phone today. Yet, I still like phones when used as I do without it in your ear or up to eyes to hear or watch every minute of your like.
1
Thank you Pagan and Damon. As a child born and raised in Massachusetts, I had the privilege to spend my summers in West Virginia, not too far from these fantastic telescopes. I immediately thought of the quiet, the solitude, and peace that an internet free place can bring to ones soul. And I miss those days.
The writing is first class, and photography is stunning.
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Good article, only in America do we see this overexposure of cellphones, other countries cells are used for work. Says a lot for how starved attention seeking Americans can be. Yes, I am American living in Dominican Republic the island of so many activities where sun and sand speak to overweight fat and sedentary vacationers to come and party like its 1999. Drinking and smoking cigars at 10 am all day in the sun and then partying until 2-3 in the morning. New idea for a business how to prepare yourself for a vacation
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@CathyK no, cellphones in other countries are not used primarily for work. They are the people's only electronic long distance communications capability.
There is little to no terrestrial connectivity in semi developing and developing countries, thus, there is no communications. The cell phone (of which China has the most), is their only way to communicate in most rural areas. In Africa texting is the most common use of the cell phone, where the country can now skip over installing landlines and are going straight to digital communications. Cell phones are as common in South Africa and Nigeria as in the US, and they are used the same way - texting, taking pictures and videos and banking.
4
@CathyK It's not only in America. Have you been to Europe or Asia lately?
2
I moved to Maine many yrs ago to get quiet . I do have dark skies- my little town sees no value to this It wants noise When a miserable factory inhabited some old buildings a few yrs ago and screeched to my ears inside a closed house 1mile away 24/7 it took a miserable experience to get anyone to listen that it mattered People love noise And of course in America they are sure they have the right to make it and bother anyone Few people understand the value of quiet. I have internet and wffi etc but at least sometimes I can go outside and say shh listen and hear very littleThen I am restored But our culture is driving us to a place of noise and crowds and inability to think or be considerate and iti will be our downfall to not see what matters
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@MD - Americans do love noise, and they bring leaf-blowers into the forest, helicopters over the beach and jumbo jets everywhere. It's so pervasive that most people don't even notice it anymore, like other forms of pollution. No wonder there's an epidemic of high blood pressure.
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@MD
I agree that noise, even very small town noise, can be very annoying. Five years ago a chimney fire forced us to look for a new house when the insurance payment couldn't cover repairs that we could no longer do ourselves. The cheapest were in the small towns - and we're talking very small.
So I now live in a town with less than 100 people that has almost constant noise - snow removal and lawn mowing, dogs barking, people yelling at each other, old pickups rattling their very slow way down the street.
It may not sound like much compared to really urban life, but I miss only hearing the wind, with a couple of days spring and fall of farm equipment.
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@Paul Adams
I go outside and look for a helicopter overhead making that noise. Nope, they're cutting my lawn.
3
Less than 3 hours from NYC are the Catskills, where there is little-to-no cell service apart from areas adjacent to the two-lane roads that constitute the major thoroughfares. Internet is even less available; satellite internet is prohibitively expensive. Kudos to Gov. Cuomo for providing grants for the extension of internet service to these more isolated areas of NY State. (Catskills are much closer than the Adirondacks - without the biting black flies!)
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@PWD
Do the Catskills still smell of sulfur?
Come visit the Adirondacks! I have trouble getting cell service within the small town i call home. Forget trying to get service on the road between small towns. Even I87 "the Northway" has highway signs warning about the absence of cell phone service as you near Canada. Being off the grid is a two-edged sword. Imagine not being able to phone your doctor's office or pharmacy or spouse saying you'll be late due to lack of cell service.
4
A superb piece. Very well done. Have put Green Bank on my list of gotta go there places.
Disconnecting is a fine thing and can happen many places. We lost all traces of cell signals in Milford Sound, New Zealand. So we used our phones to take pictures. On a route we drive through Maine we lose cell service for several miles. Not bad at all!
The thing to remember is that you own your phone. It does not own you. You have total control. It is a too convenient tool, but it’s still just a tool. There’s nothing wrong with turning it off and leaving it in a drawer. My phone is my business connection device, so I use it a lot. I killed my landline because everyone called my mobile or emailed me. But people have gotten very good about not calling in the evening and on weekends. And in most cases, not even emailing after work hours. And I won’t respond even if they do.
Many people, mostly millennials, seem all but genetically attached to their phones. They need to take control and not be controlled. But some, like my 26 and 31 year old daughters, know how to read a map and ask for directions. They use their phones a lot, but are still in charge.
I travel a lot on biz, and see countless people hunched over their phones everywhere I go. Always amazes me that their lives seem based on a few square inches of plastic, aluminum and silicon. Too bad.
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@Noley
“The thing to remember is that you own your phone. It does not own you. You have total control.”
Tell it to the tech companies. Your phone tracks you even when it’s turned off. Algorithms decide what you see. Technology is changing the world (and us) not through the way we use technology, but through the ways that Big Tech uses us.
3
There are plenty of dead zones with respect to WiFi and cellular service right on the North Shore of Long Island.
5
@Kelly I live in a small city about 20 miles north west of downtown Los Angeles. We are in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, and if we hike about an hour into the mountains (there's a lovely waterfall), we're out of cell range.
A wonderful article, and even more wonderful photos. Ms Kennedy mentions that she is from Massachusetts, and that she kayaks. So, just in case she hasn't been there, let me recommend a visit to the Mohawk State Forest in Western Ma. It's probably the most remote wilderness in MA, and there is great kayaking in the Deerfield River.
15
I will keep my experience of this wonderful article to myself.
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I discovered deep quiet during a winter trip. There was no cell coverage, no traffic, no tourist. There was nothing distracting my attention from being present with the sound of silence. I spent 2 days/nights among quiet and dark skies. These places of quiet aren’t always easy to get to but find such a place and you struck gold.
17
I like the irony of a technological quiet space created so technology can be used to listen to the sky.
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Access to signals is a big thing, but so is affordability. In places where signals are sketchy, people have to have landlines, and some can’t afford to have a smartphone too. And some just can’t afford a smartphone, period. And Spectrum now charges a minimum of $70 per month for home WiFi in upstate NY.
12
Spectrum, Comcast, etc. Thieves, gouging those who have no alternative, no competition. Terrible service, outrageous prices. US continues to fall farther and farther behind the world.
3
Cool story. Absolutely stunning pics.
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@Larry
And how.
1
I remember purchasing my first smart phone for Christmas, 2013-
it is still with me, never upgraded, and I fought against buying it.
My husband said I became a texting machine, something he never thought would happen.
I'm moving to a rural town in New England, so I expect watching beautiful night skies will replace my cell phone habit.
Wish me luck.
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@mainesummers
You can do it; it's wonderful. I hope your area has inconsistent cell signals as many rural places in Maine do. We still have flip phones and rarely if ever text. It's fine. And it's QUIET.
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@mainesummers
My wife and I have been going to a small town in coastal Maine for the last 20 years, and it was always great when you passed the point when cell service stopped. It is a liberating feeling to know you don't need to look at your phone as there is nothing to look at! So happy to instead look at the beautiful scenery and listen to the waves crash on the rocks.
23