Firenze Santa Maria Novella, Florence’s central railway hub, was overflowing with commuters. Passengers desperately clinging to their phones spilled out onto the platforms from beneath the departures board, making it difficult to weave through to the fiery red high-speed train that would take me north to Verona. But with a delay of almost an hour, I did what any netizen would deem unthinkable: whipped out my book and pored over its pages while counting down the minutes.
Once a preferred pastime while travelling, hardcovers have been replaced by content in the digital age, with novels relegated to a status akin to an accessory. As any digital native can attest, there’s a subconscious allure to mindlessly perusing through social media, checking feeds and double-tapping posts – something we’re increasingly becoming hardwired to refer to as a default when there’s a lull in activity. Those chronically online are finding solace in screentime and becoming rapidly burnt out in the process. So, as I stole glances between paragraphs of my fellow voyagers glued to their devices, their thumbs working overtime to feed unquenchable appetites for new material, it was like I finally broke the circuit.
I left Sydney for a month-long trip through Italy and England with a general malaise. It’s said that how you spend your days is how you spend your life, and mine was shaping up to be delineated by evenings of unproductiveness, aimless absorption of my ‘For You’ page and a compulsion to keep up online. I knew swift intervention was necessary to stop the flow of discontent and self-imposed comparisons to the seemingly picture-perfect existences being paraded on the internet. So, I deleted it all. Cut off, cold turkey. Telling only a few people that they wouldn’t be hearing from me – or seeing me, for that matter – on Instagram for the next 21 days, I silently slipped from the algorithm’s grasp one gigabyte at a time.
Connection, Interrupted
It wasn’t until the seventh day – the first of four nights in Rome after spending a week among the Mediterranean cypress trees and Medieval hilltop towns in Tuscany – that I felt well and truly detached. But I didn’t understand why I couldn’t find solace sitting still. The realisation hit me following an afternoon at a café along the Tiber in Prati. Returning to my Airbnb, exhausted albeit exhilarated by the shapes and colours of the Eternal City, I should’ve sensed a reprieve as I unwound to the sounds of people moving through the Piazza Mignanelli below. Instead, all I could think about was re-downloading Instagram.
In a moment of weakness, I did the rounds. I headed to Outlook to check my inbox. I then flicked through Depop, liking second-hand pieces I thought might make me more fulfilled. I even stopped by Reddit in an attempt to scratch the itch my brain was begging for. I felt worse. I was wasting precious time abroad when I could’ve been living ‘la dolce vita’.
As Mary Bonich, principal clinical psychologist at The Feel Good Clinic in Sydney, told me a week after I returned, those conflicted emotions weren’t because I was a deeply broken person, but rather a “common response from cutting out a source of instant gratification”. It sounds sick to say it: I was in withdrawal – symptoms Bonich says are no different to stopping a habit like gambling, gaming or smoking.
Lessons In Chemistry
Like a substance, social media usage triggers the release of dopamine – the feel-good chemical. This naturally occurring neurotransmitter is “involved in the brain’s reward and pleasure centres, playing a key role in motivating behaviour by creating a sense of gratification”, Bonich explains. “Each like, comment and notification acts as a small reward, causing the brain to release dopamine. This creates a feedback loop, reinforcing the behaviour and leading us to seek more online interaction so we can experience the same pleasurable feelings again and again.”
While it may feel good in the moment, it’s a cheap thrill that can quickly sour. Studies have proven an association between social media use and a decline in mental health – and the elements of social media we find enjoyment in can also activate the brain’s stress response system.
“When it comes to waiting for likes or receiving notifications, social media can activate the brain’s stress response system. Cortisol, often referred to as the ‘stress hormone’, is released in response to these stress signals,” says Bonich. “The frequent checking of updates, coupled with the potential for negative interactions, comparisons, or FOMO, can elevate cortisol levels, which is linked to increased stress and anxiety. Over time, this heightened stress response may have negative effects on overall wellbeing and can contribute to issues like depression, impaired focus, and sleep disruption.
“This complicated push-pull relationship can lead to a cycle where the pursuit of pleasure (dopamine) is intertwined with the experience of heightened stress (cortisol),” she continues. “This can cause our brains to struggle to regulate hormonal spikes and maintain emotional balance, ultimately compromising healthy brain function.”
Offline Features
The pursuit of travelling offline wasn’t a conscious attempt to calibrate my mind. Distance makes the heart grow stronger, and doesn’t hurt at putting things in perspective either. As the trip continued, I surrendered to fully immersing myself in the ancient ruins, rusted streets and incomparable glow that suffuses everything from the glistening Cacio e Pepe to the formidably crumbling Colosseum with a sense of grandeur. When you’re standing in the former epicentre of the world, the sense of magnitude helps to coax you off something as inconsequential as doom scrolling.
One day, with my head out of my phone and taking in my surroundings unfiltered, I stumbled upon a quaint bar just tucked behind the Pantheon. Sant’Eustachio il Caffè is somewhat of a rite-of-passage establishment for locals. Brewing its own roast since 1938, the unassuming shop has long been heralded as home to the best coffee in Italy. (And by direct consequence, the world.)
Unbeknown to me at the time, it’s since garnered a starry reputation after being immortalised in the 2010 film Eat, Pray, Love when heroine Julia Roberts poorly attempts to order an espresso during her first day in town. But on that slightly hazy weekday, it drew me in with its charming old waiters in burgundy vests and cacophony of Italian being spoken in the courtyard.
Later that day, I feasted on spaghetti alla carbonara at another storied establishment around the corner, Armando Al Pantheon. Feeding Romans since 1961, the cosy dining room once played host to Stanley Tucci for an episode of Searching For Italy.
Perhaps if I had invested any time in seeking out haunts like these prior, I would’ve been robbed of the joy of uncovering them first-hand. To me, these weren’t inclusions on a travel influencer’s ‘10 Places You Must Visit In Rome’ TikTok or iconic haunts enshrined in media, but hidden gems worth mining. That made all the difference.
“Staying off our phones during travel helps keep us more present by reducing distractions and enhancing our mindfulness,” says Bonich. “We are more likely to notice details, engage more deeply with locals and fellow travellers… This heightened awareness can lead to more authentic, satisfying, meaningful, and memorable trips.”
The Art Of Letting Go
As it transpired, these joyful acts of discovery weren’t an isolated occurrence. To help aid my transition to a slower and offline pace, I borrowed a litany of books to act as a buffer and keep me preoccupied. But by the time I got to the third stop on my journey – Florence – I had already devoured my entire glut of reading material. Knowing I’d be continuing onwards to Verona, Venice and London for my final weeks, I’d tasked myself with hunting down a boutique that sold English-language narratives. By chance and around the corner, my rudderless wander led me to the most beautiful store imaginable: Giunti Odeon.
In the bones of the Renaissance palace that once provided residence to the Medici family’s rivals lay a towering three-storey premises that was part book store, part theatre. While Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining projected behind me, I stalked down a copy of Sally Rooney’s fourth novel, Intermezzo. I read the opening pages standing up and savouring the moment of respite. In any other circumstance, that interlude would’ve been an opportunity to take stock of my feed.
The preference for these inherently performative and ultimately destructive mediums is, however, somewhat out of our hands.
“Social media often feels more gratifying than real-life experiences because it provides instant feedback,” Bonich explains. “These quick hits of validation are more immediate and often more powerful than the slower, more subtle rewards we get from in real life interactions. While they may take longer to offer satisfaction, they tend to provide deeper and more lasting fulfilment.”
In the end, what we might be missing out on during a digital detox while overseas is simply a construct – a visual narrative we’ve organised ourselves into depending upon for information and entertainment. We corral ourselves around images of cocktails on a beach during some lavish tropical getaway, laud a ‘fit check’ filmed on a mundane European street and delude ourselves into thinking the first slide of our carousels holds any real significance.
These apps are nothing but escapism, and if I had my time again I’d much prefer cashing it in on watching a regional artisan hand-blow glass using generations-old techniques in Murano, slinking down cicchetti by the canals of Venice or trading laughs over a table in Shoreditch with friends.
Unwiring yourself is the first step, and Bonich recommends users start reframing their relationships with social media as ‘intentional engagement’ and establishing boundaries as the primary port of call.
“To stay offline in the long run, start by setting some healthy boundaries for yourself and measuring your progress with a screentime app,” she suggests. “Instead of quitting cold turkey, slowly reduce your reliance through a gradual, mindful approach until you achieve the right balance for you. As part of this, it is often helpful to get to the bottom of why you use social media and identify the role it plays in your life. You can then look at replacing social media with new rituals or fulfilling activities to meet these needs, such as making plans with your friends.
“The ultimate goal here is to form new long-term habits and reap the many benefits of a more connected life offline,”she says.
And if you ever know I’m away and see a green dot telling you I’m online and active – no, you didn’t!
GRAZIA’s Travelling Library
Irrespective of whether you’re about to embark on a sojourn or are looking for a fictional world to help punctuate reality, here is a list of poignant, stirring and thought-provoking books I read on my recent holiday.
Completely original, exhilarating and utterly consuming, Miranda July’s sophomore novel is an inhabiting look at a woman at the unavoidable turning point of life – perimenopause. It’s raucously horny and deliberately intimate but repackages the gamut of mid-life female experiences under this deceptively simple premise: a Los Angeles creative turns off a highway 40 minutes into her cross-country road trip to New York. Drafted to elicit a visceral reaction after reading, this book is possessive, haunting and transfixing in the best way possible.
We have a new alternative literary darling on our hands with Gabriel Smith. The 28-year-old London-based author set the debut novel scene alight with his first outré offering, Brat. Like the name suggests, the self-titled protagonist is wry, acerbic and followed by long-buried secrets that become increasingly unearthed. With a roll-out that is inherently tied to Charli XCX and praises from bibliophile princess Kaia Gerber, Brat unfurls like a house of mirrors – spooky at first, then overwhelmingly terrifying.
This Japanese-language bestseller, based on the real-life story of a serial killer who is said to have slain her victims through food poisoning, fantastically modifies this premise into a story of obsession, loneliness, fatphobia and misogyny. The protagonist Rika Machida is a Tokyo-based journalist at a weekly newspaper who becomes the only reporter to score face-to-face time with the accused murderer Manako Kajii. After being given an assignment by the alleged killer in exchange for an exclusive interview, Rika descends into an unthinkable relationship before being consumed by food and death.
Booker Prize-winning author Douglas Stuart once again takes us to the dilapidated and sorely underfunded housing estates of Glasgow for a provocative love story between star-crossed teenagers. Oscillating between past and present before violently crescendoing to a harrowing yet hopeful finish, Stuart paints beauty in the mundane through sentences that gleam character and reflect truth.
Sugar baby Alex is languishing around Long Island for the summer after being kicked out by her boyfriend. Desperate not to return to the city in fear of what awaits her there, and after becoming adjusted to the spoils of the ultra-wealthy, she charms locals and flirts with destruction in a bid to rectify her situation. Hot, steamy and soon-to-become your favourite interloper, Emma Cline’s The Guest is the ultimate beach read.
One of the most tender love stories ever written. You’re, of course, familiar with Luca Guadagnino’s arresting on-screen adaptation starring Timothée Chalamet, but the original 256-page story will leave far more of an imprint. Told over five parts and two decades, the enduring romance follows the kismet connection between Elio and Oliver over one transformative summer spent in Northern Italy and the ghosts that haunt them in subsequent years. Philosophical and endearing, this is a tale of unrequited, all-consuming and life-altering love.
This story first appeared on GRAZIA International.
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