Keeping it Boony
In my house on Matinicus Island there is a crumbling, yellowed newspaper comic strip tacked up somewhere, in which the teenaged protagonist raves about the privations of a remote vacation cabin somewhere in the woods. To paraphrase his loud complaint, “I can deal with no TV. Okay; maybe no video games. But NO CELL RECEPTION?!” An eye-rolling parent mutters that, “The boonies just got boonier.”
Matinicus Island is getting less boony all the time, for better or worse. Cell reception used to be, “Only if you can see the mainland from your location, and you’re standing on a ladder.” It has now improved to, “Don’t rely on it for life-or-death, but you’ve got a reasonable chance most places. The harbor isn’t great. Might depend on weather, too.” The little island library is a free wireless hub, and anybody can check messages from there (or they can hang around all day playing Fortnight, if they need to). But I still cherish the image of some birdwatching, stargazing, lobster-eating vacationer telling their over-reaching boss, “Sorry—I’ll be out of touch until I get back. The whole place is such an uncivilized and primitive backwater that I’m forced to be entirely offline. You won’t be able to call me. Cell signal on the island is terrible. Don’t even bother.”
Three family members and I were fortunate enough to spend a few days up in the woods northeast of Greenville during one of the heavier snowstorms this winter. Our camp did not offer connectivity (aside from satellite if urgent,) so we put our phones on “airplane mode.” Some used them as cameras as we snowshoed and skied around Second Roach Pond. I never even bothered carrying mine.
Being offline was nice. These words are not a sermon on the morals of social media (though there may be very few morals in social media,) or a lecture on the character-building advantages of a little privation now and then. If I need some character-building privation, I’ll go without milk in my coffee. I’m just admitting that it felt good to be offline for a while. I’ll be wanting that feeling again, too, and soon.
Maybe that’s what the Appalachian Mountain Club knew all along, with their prime accommodations: three meals a day, all the firewood, chocolate chip cookies, and Moosehead Beer you want, and no internet.
A telephone you can carry along most anywhere is a pretty serious advancement and a huge convenience, and I am not really a Luddite; I just believe we need to remind the machines and their purveyors who is in charge once in a while. I have some friends who don’t use the internet at all. Not owning a computer, and not using a cell phone except when on cross-country road trips or such, these folks cite advanced age as their excuse, but I think it’s just their lifestyle choice after careful consideration. Of course, not subscribing to any internet means you might occasionally need your friends for online paperwork, like applying for your state burn permit. That’s OK; none of us gets through life alone.
There is an expression used by communications workers, radio hobbyists, and electrical engineers that I’ve always liked for its multiplicity of possible meanings: “signal-to-noise ratio.” That it is also a spot-on metaphor for our times. If I ever took up writing a more serious column, I might title it “Signal to Noise Ratio,” if somebody else hadn’t done so already. We all could use a break from the noise once in a while, anyway.
As for shutting off the continuous nattering (and defying the addiction) that describes the online lifestyle, I would never make the case that people should ignore what’s going on in the wider world. Responsible adults must not put heads in the metaphorical sand, claim that “none of this is my problem” and wax lyrical about “blissful ignorance” over the long term. However, fixating on “the” news, whether it really is or isn’t, and allowing full-on immersion into the barrage of insult and manipulation so constantly triggered is a good way to lose our ever-lovin’ minds. So, no: don’t call me out as being irresponsible about current events because I say it’s fun to quit the media for a weekend. I actually enjoy “watching the evening news” the old-fashioned way, meaning not for 24 hours a day. But a few days offline, with neither broadcast media nor internet, is a genuine pleasure.
Respect to the boonies; let us forever find them somewhere.