Digital Detox is Changing YU’s Technology Culture
We don’t spend hours a day doomscrolling, which means that we have a lot of extra time. What did we do with all that extra time? We, the leadership team of YU’s Digital Detox initiative, did the only logical thing: We got other people off their phones.
Digital Detox is a new initiative on the Wilf Campus which has set its ambitions on vastly enhancing the college experience of YU students. The initiative was started by Binyomin Eidlisz (YC ‘27), who later recruited Gabriel Trauring (SSSB ‘28), Coby Melkin (YC ‘28), Aviel Siegel (YC ‘28) and myself to help out. Eidlisz, inspired by books like “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt and the personal pain of YouTube procrastination, hoped his initiative might help this prevalent issue.
Acknowledging that phones are here to stay, Digital Detox hopes to help people have healthy boundaries with their phones, rather than encouraging people to lose their phones altogether. Almost any person on the street, when asked if they want to spend less time on their phone, will respond in the affirmative. Yet few people actually take the initiative to implement this in their day-to-day lives. Digital Detox set out to change that.
Digital Detox took inspiration from Shabbos, a day which many people find so blissful because there isn’t the constant pull of buzzes and pings from their phones. What if we could create this experience during the week? The students leading this initiative ran a few campus-wide digital detoxes where participants did not use their phones for 25 hours straight. To encourage and celebrate participation, the student leaders provided delicious treats like hot pretzels, cookies and Carlos and Gabby’s during the 25 hours.
Before each detox, we plastered the campus with hundreds of flyers with the link to the official announcements chat, and also set up a table in various lobbies to get the word out about the upcoming detox. And people signed up in droves. Participation ranged from between 50 to 75 people in the different detoxes, and there are over 280 people on the chat who are interested in future detoxes. After each detox, there were raffles for YU Owala water bottles, YU Comfys and Sefarim Sale gift cards sponsored by the Student Organization of Yeshiva (SOY) and Undergraduate Torah Studies (UTS).
“The Digital Detox really opened my eyes to the way I was spending my time and helped me realize just how many hours every day could be spent on the things that really matter, instead of wasted on nothingness,” Yishai Gross (YC ‘28) told The Commentator.
Amazingly, people wanted more. After discovering the freedom of not being glued to their phones, participants asked for a longer challenge. So, Digital Detox started a 30-day phone challenge. For the first 18 days, a new challenge was sent out, along with a short piece of motivation interweaving Torah and scientific sources relating to that day’s challenge. The challenges included leaving one’s phone in a different room for 15 minutes, turning one’s phone into black -and-white mode and turning off all non-essential notifications. Ezra Lebowitz (YC ‘27) commented that “the 30-day phone challenge has really helped me lower my screen time over the last month. The most helpful challenge for me has been turning off my notifications — not just turning on do not disturb, but going into settings and not allowing notifications from most apps. The changes are really noticeable!”
Every day, a poll was sent out on the dedicated 30-day challenge WhatsApp chat for participants to track their progress and to share encouragement among the group. Then, at the end of the week, people would tally up how many challenges they did that week. For the last week, participants were tasked to pick three different challenges and do them every day for a week to build their newly acquired habits into their lives. At the end of the 30-day period, participants who completed six out of seven challenges each week celebrated their progress with an ice cream party.
This is just the beginning of what Digital Detox hopes to accomplish. We plan on expanding next year to different high schools and colleges. In YU, we hope it will become even more popular than it already was by having past participants be ambassadors to bring in even more people and create societal change. As Jonathan Haidt shared with us earlier in the year in the “Great Conversations” series with President Berman, at the end of the day, we can only permanently change our habits if everyone is in it together.
Imagine a reality in which awkward lunch tables surrounded by friends looking down at their phones are replaced with tables filled with laughter and brotherhood. A reality in which connection is fostered through in-person dialogue rather than text messages with clips of YouTube Shorts. By getting involved in Digital Detox, you can choose to spend your time more intentionally and meaningfully, rather than spending it on your phone.
Photo Credit: Binyomin Eidlisz
Photo Caption: Digital Detox Logo
