How to Have a 90's Weekend and Reset Your Tech Addiction

Sometimes a hard reset is all you need.

After coming face to face with our severe social media addiction, my husband and I decided last Fall we needed to cold-turkey life for a minute—a three-day weekend of cold-turkeying to be precise. Born at the tail end of the 90s and growing up with the iPhone, I never knew life without technology. I feel I entered the world with it, unlike the generation born into it now. Thus, by the time I was a teenager, I was already fighting a severe tech addiction. Over a decade later, something had to be done.

The premise was simple: for one long weekend, we would time-travel in our home back to the 90's. Any technology that was developed after 1990 wasn't allowed in our lives. You may not be working to fight tech addiction like us, but it was a fantastic reset to recognize our brain's propensity to reach for our phones first when there is any moment of boredom. So we gave ourselves 72 hours of boredom to fix it.

By the end of the weekend, we didn't want to get back online. Our dependency on constant entertainment was obvious, and our relationship was stronger. Here's what we did to make the most of our 90's weekend:

First, and most obviously, we put our phones in a drawer. Hard reset off, and redirected to the landline. We called all the important people we regularly communicated with in our lives and told them our plans. They could only reach us by phone, preferably only if it was urgent. Hearing the landline ring was nostalgic in itself.

We weren't going entirely off-grid, so I found a landline phone on Amazon a week before our weekend. I did research and needed to purchase something called a "MagicJack," which was a modern alternative to having to pay for cable. It was by minute calls, and gave the phone its own number. It was a relatively simple setup. There were other alternative options I'd like to try with wired phones, like Physical Phones that automatically hook up to Bluetooth, but I didn't have the runway to get that set up at the time.

Other Additional Old-Tech

There were a few other purchases I made beforehand, including a few analog clocks to set around the house, batteries for our watches, and I tracked down an old radio. I have my grandmother's record player, so I pulled that out, dusted off the records, and found a few old favorites. I also tracked down our camera and brought it with us. A disposable camera may be even more fun!

It's amazing how reliant we are on our phones, not just for entertainment or calls, but for recipes too. This was a surprise to me that turned out to be one of the best parts of the weekend. I woke up the first morning, realizing I hadn't planned meals and couldn't remember my usual pancake recipe. Instead of my usual Googling or heading to saved tabs, or if I'm being honest, ChatGPT, I pulled out a few old recipe books my mom had given me. To my delight, I saw her handwriting in the corners, making amendments to recipes and sharing her favorite additions. Nothing can replace that kind of connection to my mom! I then had a wonderful time flipping through all my physical cookbooks, new and old, selecting meals for the weekend, and heading to the store. That, in itself, was an adventure.

I realized, getting in my car to head to the store, that I didn't have my phone, so no one would know where I was. I started to panic, but then remembered that's how every person in the world, up until twenty years ago, functioned. What a concept! If I fell in a ditch or got lost, I'd figure it out. I had to have confidence in myself instead of calling immediately for help. Regardless, the store was just around the corner. I grabbed my hand-written list (subbed for my usual notes app checklist) and made my way.

I would suggest finding a physical map of your city and a compass to explore for yourself or with your children. It is an excellent skill to have, and it will help you in a pinch if you do get lost without directions while driving somewhere!

The rest of the weekend was fantastic. We hiked, played games, read, had a picnic, played music together, chatted for long hours, had a bonfire, and slept under the stars... a true staycation without screentime. I had to convince my husband to do it, but he saw the value just as much. Within the first few hours, he had finished projects he had put off for months, and finally invested in a hobby he had wanted to try for months.

In the end, we didn't want to go back and plan to do it once a quarter now. It opened our eyes to just how much we were attached to our screens to fill the silence, and has made us start on some active efforts to change the flow of our home.

You'll notice I haven't mentioned anything about TV, and we intentionally don't have one. I've found that most living rooms are positioned for screen time rather than community, so I moved our TV out to the garage several years ago. Now, whenever we want to watch a film, we make an event out of it. We pull out the projector and screen, make popcorn, get cozy blankets, and make that time meaningful. Not having the impulse to always have something playing in the background has been transformational to my mind and creativity. It's incredible how quickly background entertainment can slip into our lives-- in the shower, cooking, on a walk... we must renew moments of silence once again.

After our weekend in the 90's, we purchased Zen, which is similar to Brick, that essentially limits our phones to only texting and calling when the modem is clicked with the back of our phones. You can only turn it off when it is clicked again. I keep this device in my office and use it when writing, in meetings, or when I need to focus. I also aim to use it every night about an hour before going to bed, until I sit down at my desk the next morning. I believe it's why I've started to sleep better.

If you've tried every hack, screen-time limiting app, and feel your brain changing to mush, I could not recommend a hard reset like ours more. It may be difficult at first, but your mind, heart, and relationships may thank you!

If you try a 90's weekend, send us your photos and share your experience! We'd love to hear what worked well for you as we all work to balance our fast-paced tech world with the beauty of slowing down.