For the last 12 weeks I have been working at a summer camp in the middle of the Northwood of Wisconsin. I have been canoeing, hiking, making s’more and have been totally deprived of technology. Not only does my camp have a ‘Place Apart’ policy which purposefully makes a community technology free, but the only way to get a decent signal is to climb out to a campsite in the middle of nowhere or go to McDonalds for some free crappy Wi-Fi.

So once I was home and back with a phone in my hand and all possible information within my reach there was one obvious first question, “Who is Harambe and why are we so angry about him?”

I’ll admit that I was confused. Every meme and inside joke of the internet was lost on me. I hadn’t watched a second of the Olympics, so I had no idea who had won gold or who was even competing. Justin Timberlake’s new song ‘Can’t Stop The Feeling’ was just another annoying song on the radio. I managed to stay on top of celebrity feuds by reading the covers of trashy magazines when I went into town to do laundry, but besides that I was clueless. I felt more like a woman who had woken from a ten-year coma and not a girl who had been without her phone for three months.

There are many hardships that come with making yourself a hermit to technology. You miss new music and movies, you cannot quickly text your friends and family to make plans, and none of the Snapchat filters ever work. These hardships may seem petty and unimportant, but in our society where knowledge of current events and cultural references and currency I was very poor.

It was in that moment, though, while I was lost in the woods of technology, that I realized how lucky I had been to get away.

This summer I was able to make relationships with people that didn’t consist of us sitting together both looking at our phones. I had real deep and beautiful conversations, I read a dozen books and used a disposable camera—so I didn’t have endless rolls of ugly selfies, but pictures that really mattered. I watched suns rise and suns set. I saw shooting stars and the milky way and huge lightning storms form over my head. I cliff jumped and skinny dipped in Lake Superior and never once turned to my phone to find something fun to do. I was able to ignore the craziness of this year’s election and I did not have to read offensive ideas in the comment sections of videos.

When I left the suburbs and the city and entered the woods I took a breath of fresh air. In a place without news outlets and Netflix I was able to rest from the beast which is our society and just take in what was happening in front of me.

I am by no means a Luddite. I love technology and the things that come with it. I want to be able to know about a natural disaster in another country or be able to quote a funny Vine to my friends. I do think it is absolutely necessary that everyone have a season of no technology where they put away their phones, turn off their Wi-Fi and live with their hands open and their eyes on the stars.