I’ve just come home from walking the Milford Track in New Zealand. Crazy beautiful four-day walk in Fiordland down in the South Island.

Check out Trish’s photos on Facebook.

One of the great things about the walk is that there is no phone reception or internet. Which meant our smart phones were reduced to being cameras for the duration. And at the end of every day, we all … just … talked to each other.

There were 50 people in our group. We were all disconnected from our devices. Which means we could connect to each other. And perhaps to ourselves a bit more.

In Stolen Focus, Johann Hari writes about how smart phones are destroying our ability to concentrate. He says on average we touch or check our phones more than 2,000 times, and spend more than three hours staring at them. Scary.

I have a practice of at least once a quarter spending a few days somewhere with no phone reception or internet.

I also have no social media on my phone.

I recommend both.