Wired differently
Why some young professionals are giving up the gadgets -- and getting along fine without them
There's a television in Cara and Alan Kalf's Arlington living room, but it's stashed in a corner, its screen turned resolutely to the wall. It's used only for the occasional DVD - or as a favorite perch for the family cat.
As for music, the couple listens to record albums - remember those? - on a turntable or on one of the old jukeboxes Alan has restored. There's no Internet connection in the household. Cara has an iPod she uses only when traveling. She also has a cellphone: "But I don't always answer it. Sometimes I leave it in my coat pocket. I forget about it."
The couple aren't elderly Luddites terrified by technology. She's 27; he's 31. They are members of a small cohort: the young and unplugged. While their friends, relatives, and colleagues have every gadget known to mankind, the Kalfs have made a conscious decision not to blog, tweet, or instant message. They e-mail only when necessary. And they say they're better off without all that stuff.
According to the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, 96 percent of adults who work use the Internet, e-mail, or have a cellphone. Of workers and nonworkers alike, only 14 percent are "off the grid," with no online access or cellphone, and they tend to be older, low-income women. Nearly 40 percent of Americans use wireless mobile devices such as BlackBerrys. Almost a quarter of Americans use social networking sites such as Facebook.
Dr. Peter Whybrow, head of the Department of Psychiatric and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA's School of Medicine, says the preoccupation with high-tech tools is understandable. "By nature we are curious creatures and we love trinkets and novelties," he says. But the fast pace of technology has created a glut of gadgets - and a slight backlash.
"A small group of people are reacting to what is overload," Whybrow says. "They are fascinated by this initially . . . but after a while, they find it erodes time as opposed to saving time, and time is the only thing we've really got that is our own. If you become consumed by new technology and forget you are fundamentally creatures of the natural world, you do end up diminishing your life."
The Kalfs would agree with that. "We make it difficult for ourselves to access the Internet so we don't spend time just hanging out on it," says Cara, who teaches eighth-graders in Stoneham. Instead, they have more time for reading, for hobbies - and for each other.
"Worshiping at the church of the pixel comes at the expense of real-life experience," says Alan, who teaches biology at Lexington Christian Academy. His students are aghast at the fact that he doesn't watch TV. But by limiting their use of technology, they have freed up time for activities they love. She works on craft projects. He restores old jukeboxes, pinball machines, and furniture.
Not having Internet access can be inconvenient, but if they feel an urgent need for a computer, they go to her parents' house. They don't miss the sensory overload they had when they watched television and spent more time online. "It's not that I don't like doing these things," Alan says. "It's that I like them too much, and have a hard time setting limits. And then I feel frustrated at the end of the evening when I haven't accomplished or learned anything."
Instead, the couple listens to music and radio shows. They read a lot. They're involved in church activities. They cook from scratch and have friends over for dinner. They love board games. They play music: Cara the guitar, Alan piano, organ, and Dobro.
The Kalfs realize that few people their age limit their use of high-tech gadgets. "Sometimes friends think it's weird," Cara says. She recently told her brother-in-law that she was sure there were others like her and her husband. "Yeah, the Amish," he replied.
But there are a few others, and they're closer than Pennsylvania Dutch country. Anna Raassina and Stephen Seaward of Brookline have neither a television nor a microwave. Both 23, they gave up Facebook a couple of years ago. They don't IM. Because they're in college - senior philosophy majors at UMass-Boston - they must have computers, but once they finish, they plan to pack them away.
"I feel a little bit like a prisoner to it," Seaward says. "It's very useful - there's no denying that - but I think we also lose something. The more things become fast-paced, the less able we are to understand complex arguments, to concentrate on long artworks, like a symphony, or read a long novel."
As a demographic group, the couple would be considered "digital natives," or those in their mid-teens to mid-20s who have grown up in a highly technical, online world of video games, text messaging, websites, and social networking. But Seaward says his mother limited the time he spent using the Internet, watching television, and playing video games.
"I'm not a Luddite," he says. "I don't go off into the woods somewhere. I know how to do all this stuff." He had an iPod, but after it went through the washing machine in his pants pocket, he didn't replace it. He doesn't have a car; he takes the T. There's no microwave, he says, because "it doesn't do anything that my stove or oven don't do."
Rebecca Norman, 22, lives in an apartment with two other seniors at UMass-Amherst. They have no television. Norman sends texts only if it's urgent. She tried Facebook briefly but opted out. "I find the whole thing very voyeuristic," says Norman, who grew up in Newton. Instead, she writes letters - on stationery she makes - and uses the telephone to keep in touch. E-mail is reserved for academic or job-related missives.
Her friends wonder why she's not on Facebook. "They think I'm just trying to be a contrarian," she says, "but I tell them I'm not trying to make a statement. I just prefer not to have it in my life." She says she'd rather spend her spare time reading and working on art projects. Even her middle-age mother and her 80-year-old grandfather are on Facebook, as are her two sisters. But there's one advantage to not having it, she says: "My sisters have had to deal with whether or not to friend our mom." 