CH: But you could write a story without Wi-Fi—that’s what I do. The work that I do in the air will be a story that I bang out in the notes app. I would say Wi-Fi distracts me from doing that work, actually, because once I get it on my phone I become the same person that I am everywhere else, which is a person who is always on his phone.
When I am not writing, I want to take this chance to unplug. I’m also, though, a person who will take any excuse not to work which is why I love when planes don’t have Wi-Fi. And something that [Green and Rahma] mention that remains largely unexplained is how much better movies feel in the air—how much more emotional you are. I had seen Lost in Translation before and just didn’t get it, but on a flight back from Germany it hit so hard and I put down my tray table and buried my head in my arms on it and wept.
MF: One thing that should absolutely be abolished is when you can watch an advertisement in order to earn Wi-Fi. I have never felt my phone addiction so acutely as when I do that. I was on a flight where I could watch one ad for 15 minutes of Wi-Fi, and then another for another 15 minutes, but then it was capped. I think it was American Airlines.
Hannah Towey: I feel very strongly that in-flight Wi-Fi should be abolished. The airplane is a sacred space without Wi-Fi that doesn’t exist anymore in our world. I am speaking as Hannah the private citizen, not as Hannah the worker—
MO: The transportation editor!
HT: —the transportation editor who does do work on planes, I promise. The miracle of flight is so cool, you can just stare out the window, take it all in, and let your mind drift. I have made very important life decisions staring out the window looking down on the world with nobody able to get to me. It’s the same thing, to a degree, with road trips and trains and ships.
MB: It does feel truly unnatural to be in this sacred space—
CH: You’re as close to heaven as you’ll ever get and you’re on your phone?
MB: Right—it’s the same when you’re on a cruise ship with the ocean on every side of you as far as the eye can see and you’re somehow getting Slack messages. It feels wrong.
MF: That happened to me in Antarctica. I simply could not believe that I was in Antarctica and answering Slack messages. There was such a disconnect between being in such a remote place and tap-tap-tapping on my laptop, I felt like they should shut it off. Because there’s this meditative potential.
HT: I think constant connectivity is really bad for our brains. And creativity. We’ve forgotten how to let ourselves get bored.
CH: Not to make everything about The White Lotus, but it also makes me think about the digital detox plot this season where because the father refuses initially to put his phone in the bag, he is exposed to the fact that his life is unraveling back home. And then he can’t get off his phone even though there’s nothing he can do. He would have been spared because ignorance is bliss.
MB: So it sounds like that as human beings, we would all prefer to unplug. But as employees who happen to travel a lot for work… we are in capitalism’s shackles.
