Inspired by Mr. Bennett, I encouraged them to aggressively reintroduce high-value leisure activities that had nothing to do with glowing screens-- even if those activities required more energy and commitment than clicking "next episode" or scrolling a Twitter feed. Many embraced my advice.
A graduate student named Unaiza replaced her habit of browsing Reddit at night with reading library books, finishing eight during her digital declutter.
"I could never have thought about doing that before,"she told me proudly.
COMMENT
One of the trends identified by the Center for the Future of Libraries is "unplugged." CFL even suggests: "This may be a rebranding from "quiet reading spaces" to "unplug zones" or "digital escape spaces" that capitalize on the trend's language.
The fact that reading library books counts as a "high value leisure activity" shows why librarians have been mistaken to overvalue immediate digital access. Actually reading a book takes hours to weeks. Getting the book right now is often not the most important consideration compared to selecting books that are worth the time commitment. Sometimes waiting is even preferable. When you get in the queue for a current best-seller it might not come for a month, but when it does arrive it's nice to be reminded of something that looked interesting. The public library has a wonderful "Lucky Day" shelf near the exit with popular books on it, and once in a while you get to jump to the head of the line by going to the actual library.
In the digital age, libraries should spend less time trying to become part of the Internet and pay more attention the advantages of analog media and physical space. Those are things that the Internet will never have, and they are things that are becoming more and more valuable as the drawbacks of virtual space become more and more apparent.
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