It does mean a different life. There were circumstances at that time that resulted in my making a conscious choice to shift my focus away from all things tech as much as possible and into a different direction.
You can just turn it off. That said, I did have almost a month away from any phone and internet access in 2020. I expected that I would miss it. I did not; only exception was not being able to research a couple of wild plants I wasn't familiar with.
Library!
My big trip was a significant break, although not all the way off grid. I'm growing the crowtube channel but sometimes I can schedule things a few weeks ahead and duck out. Work, though, that's a different story. Need to be online and phoned to make money, and need money. So...
Yes, my Achilles heel, libraries. It put me in a position of more focused observation without it though.
Work is always a different story. It's the direction society was engineered to go in. Wasn't tech supposed to free us up for a better quality of life? I think that was the promise way back. Instead I experience the expectation of bells, chimes, rapid acceleration of pace, and constant demands of instant gratification. I don't find any of this to be improving the quality of my life.
I'm with you on that. But I do appreciate being able to text clients about appointments and submit invoices electronically with my portable tracking device.
No denying that it's useful, just having fond memories of life in a different time.