The cliche is to escape to an island paradise, and to disconnect from everything.

I guess I’m not following the trend. I’ve used my phone throughout the day when at our favorite bar. A beer every two or three hours, and WiFi for the day.

Technology can be good.

I got to FaceTime with my best friend for an hour today. I made some progress in arranging accommodation for some of our next stops. I communicated with the airline that changed our entire flight itinerary down to South Africa. I downloaded my next book.

All of these things were made possible by technology. I might be having a nice string of lazy days, but technology enables me to be productive in haphazard spurts of my choosing.

We just need to be weary of technology’s pull. Private companies worth billions of dollars spend millions, on marketing and operations, on the salaries of teams of engineers to build systems designed to attract and maintain our attention.

If we can avoid, resist, and outsmart those systems and all the psychological hooks and traps, we can harness technology’s true potential on an individual and collective basis.

I get sucked into those traps here at the beach, the same as if I would back home. But that distraction sure is a far cry from the serene beauty I’m surrounded by. Because it’s so easy to disconnect, it’s easy to see through those intricately designed systems.

Technology can be good. Let’s use it for what matters.