In New England this year, we rented a cabin with nine other family members and friends. I didn’t bring any devices that could get online, but among the 14 of us staying there (six of them children), we’d packed in two full-size laptops, four netbooks, and an iPhone. Good luck with that, I thought, not expecting any access beyond dial-up; hope you downloaded plenty of movies ahead of time.

It turned out I was the one surprised—the cabin had both WiFi and wired Ethernet. So folks were on their computers constantly—watching silly YouTube videos, checking email, looking at weather reports and sports scores, googling this and that and everything. Instead of the lapping of the water on the little beach, I heard the beeps of games and music from the latest viral video. And, even worse, they kept calling me to come over to the screen, as if my life would not be complete were I not to see a certain clip of extreme sailing or last night’s Daily Show.

I resolved that I would not touch a keyboard for the entire vacation; wouldn’t look at a screen if I could possibly avoid it. I was worried that once I touched a computer I’d quickly surf over to my email and would get sucked into responding and bang, I’d never be able to break away again.