how i lived 90 days without internet

January 28, 2020

Quadra, dad, Parisian and journalist, Pierre-Olivier Labbé embodies in his documentary, “Digital Detox: how I lived 90 days without the Internet”, the stereotype of “Modern Man”, trapped by his digital world, and constrained , to find its essence, to go through a withdrawal. The cathartic portrait of a digital martyr who has proven that: yes, disconnection is possible. Watch Digital Detox on Canal + on Wednesday February 25 at 8:50 p.m.

Docu-podcast and secret agent gear

Contacted by phone, Pierre-O, as he stands, is both director and “guinea pig” of his documentary. It is indeed a new genre that we propose to discover this journalist in a white jacket and sneakers: the docu-podcast, with inclusion of gifs like Tumblr to trigger the “lol” effect. A bias was taken to resemble the Youtubers well known to Internet users, Cyprien or Norman made videos. "I wanted this film to resemble what is done on social networks. We made beautiful plans, beautiful images with a big camera, but we also used what allows to have this image taken on the spot: a GoPro, a mobile phone … We almost had drones, but ultimately, we used a camera in glasses, and a camera-pen for subjective visions. This secret agent technology was unthinkable a few years ago, now everyone is using it!"

Pierre-Olivier Labbé, by his own admission, never turned off his smartphone before this experience, and communicated (almost) exclusively by F.T.I (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). Each little bit of life was shared with his followers, Like, Poke, Tweets … a 2.0 man as comfortable as a fish in the water with his smartphone. A "Phubber" (term from phone and snubbing: snubbing, that is to say ignoring people physically present by consulting their smartphone, according to Wikipedia).

Force, he wondered if it was normal, all that.

Is it serious doctor ?

By going to consult a specialist in digital addictions, Pierre-Olivier Labbé sets his frame around one of the recurring characters in the film, the figure of the shrink, the one who follows all the stages of his detoxification, and teaches him that he is reached of fomo, Fear Of Missing Out, in French: fear of missing something, but also of NOMOPHOBIA : fear of losing your mobile.

During the interview, Pierre-O’s smartphone rings, he apologizes… and loses the thread of his confessions on the couch. Difficult for him to resist the call of these tempting notifications, he explains why: “There's something about inactivity, it's almost psychiatric. The smartphone has become an object that gives capacity in society … like a cigarette! Unconsciously, we use this object as an escape, to avoid being alone in front of yourself. When I started to log out, I went to the restaurant with friends. I saw that 4 out of 6 people were leaning on their phones at the table, that's where I put my finger on them. I became aware of the problem. "

The pangs of disconnected life

As a result, Pierre-O sets off on a crusade against the evil that eats away at him: hyperconnection, notification-addiction, tweetophagy. In his living room, he opens his laptop one last time, waves his fingers above the keyboard and enters the message that will end his "former life" in a triumphant Facebook status. It is the end of the totalitarian digital era, as far as his contacts know, it took three months firm. Eloquent staging of a renewal, a quasi-ascetic orientation for this tech-addict, and a rediscovery of Hunting, Fishing and Tradition The life, the real one.

First stage : go green. So Pierre-Olivier leaves for Lozère, one of the French departments which has the worst network coverage. And there, he meets strange natives, who are not subjected to the supremacy of push notification. In a V-neck and sneakers, he walks the paths, walks, rides a mountain bike, fishing, reads books in the sun. And he has to admit it: this is the kiff. Then he goes on to San Francisco and discovers the hippie camps “Unplugged”, designed to give people a taste for life without connection. The phones are all in the locker room, and the participants are often the instigators of these time-consuming technologies. All the Silicon Valley intelligentsia who recharges his batteries by typing in the typewriter and painting stones.

Pierre-Olivier Labbé's disconnected journey takes a masochistic twist when he voluntarily goes to South Korea, the country of 4G and all-smart health connected. He arrives with his faithful traveling companion, his "Dumbphone", a phone probably classified as obsolete there. And as soon as he leaves the airport, his Korean assistant informs him that he will not even be able to use it, because here, you must be 4G compatible to be able to make calls.

We asked Pierre-O if he liked to suffer, and here is his answer:

Where I was the most maso, it was with the preparation of the documentary. What you do not see in the picture is that the disconnected preparation was an iron! We almost showed how we had prepared the film, without connection, but it broke the rhythm of the narration. We wanted to go to Korea, because there, despite an iron discipline, we cannot completely escape the connection. I went there to see what was going to fall on us in 4-5 years, roughly the advance they have on us at this level. They will have 5G in 2020. The observation that I made in Korea is that ten years ago, luxury was to be smart health connected, in ten years, luxury would be not to l 'to be.

Back to life 2.0

After a series of initiation steps, the meeting of teenagers who live very well without being hyper smart health connected via a marginal educational network, two 17-year-old girls who use their smartphone as an extension of their hand and other adventures, Pierre-O come health home, and – ouf, relief – get his “digital toys". But something has changed. Pierre-O reconnects on December 1, after three months of abstinence, without fail.

At the end of these three months, I was in a hurry to find my digital toys, but also very freaked out of the way I was going to resume. I redesigned my use and introduced new rules and real personal discipline. For example, I re-configured my phone not to receive noisy notifications during the day. I take time offline when I am with my children, on weekends with my wife or with my friends. Before, my phone was never turned off, so something clearly changed. Thanks to the advice I was able to glean, especially from the shrink, I bought a clock radio! And I have a new ritual, different from that of the smartphone on the bedside table, now in the morning, I wake up with France Inter.

A new vision of the world

Thanks to this experience, Pierre-Olivier Labbé has learned to take over technology, and chooses when he wants to use it rather than being overwhelmed by it. Since announcing the broadcast of the documentary, he has held out a mirror to society. "The press is dithyrambic, from Grazia to Télérama, via 20 minutes (and ABsmarthealth of course, note). It makes me hallucinate as people reclaim the subject. ”And subjects, Pierre-O is full of drawers and already planning new projects in 90-minute format with Canal +, which was packed by Digital Detox.

Why does Pierre-O fascinate journalists and the public who will see his documentary on February 25?

As an editor, I think it is because the journalist parigot saturated with wi-fi waves that embodies Pierre-O a figure, a character, a stereotype, and that he fully assumes himself as such in his staging. And what feels good, for once, is thatthere is no reaction blah, no moralizing discourse. Pierre-Olivier Labbé vehicle of the good vibe with the material that generations have worked so hard to demonize. It relieves you of your little addictions to this object totem what is your smartphone. A brand with a fruit emblem had warned that it would make its customers in love with their phone … Successful bet. The whole paradox of being a phubber, this kind of handicapped social relations, the fact is that we still ask our phone to give us our daily dose of strong emotions, at full speed and in large quantities. The markéteux speak about effect "Wow". So we haven't lost the ability to marvel, our wonder is just turned to different things.

We can say that somewhere, with this documentary, and if we wanted to be pompous (let's be it): Pierre-Olivier Labbé allows us to embrace the future and no longer be afraid. We're ready.But not on weekends, weekends are river fishing and books in the sun!

Want to see Digital Detox? Tonight is on Canal + (February 25 at 8:50 p.m.). A 90-minute documentary, based on an idea by Jean Marie Michel, produced by Pierre-Olivier Labbé and Pierre-Louis Lacombe. Produced by Capa TV, with the participation of Canal +.

 Thanks to Pierre-Olivier Labbé and Aude BoussarieInterview by Barbara Prose

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