Should I Turn Off the Internet? (Lessons From a Family That Did) | Monday Advice

What It Covers

Cal Newport interviews Chris Moody, a former CNN political correspondent who relocated from New York City to a no-internet, no-cell-service log cabin in Boone, North Carolina with his wife and three-year-old son. Moody describes three years of intentional disconnection, the systems built to replace digital infrastructure, and the measurable effects on family life and focused work.

Key Questions Answered

• •Physical separation as the only reliable filter: Moody found that willpower alone cannot compete with platforms backed by billions of dollars in behavioral engineering. Removing home internet entirely — rather than using app timers or screen limits — eliminated the mental energy spent resisting urges. The cognitive load of constantly deciding whether to check a device disappears only when access itself is removed, not merely restricted.
• •Sabbath space principle: Moody recommends identifying at least one physical space or recurring time block where digital devices cannot enter — not just a room where phones are discouraged, but a hard boundary. Start with one hour, extend to 24, then a full weekend. The goal is proving personal independence from constant connectivity, a practice with roots in Jewish and Christian Sabbath traditions now applicable in secular contexts.
• •Rebuilding 20th-century infrastructure before disconnecting: Switching off home internet requires actively reinstalling atrophied systems first. Moody's family installed a landline, ordered a physical phone directory, gave all contacts the landline number, and set explicit response-window expectations — 9AM to 6PM, replies within 12 to 24 hours. Without these replacement systems in place, the disconnection creates operational failure rather than intentional simplicity.
• •Friction as a consumption regulator: Moody uses a projector, pull-down screen, and borrowed library DVDs instead of streaming. Setup takes ten minutes and requires selecting titles days in advance. This deliberate friction eliminates passive consumption and binge behavior. Each viewing has a defined endpoint. Applied to a three-year-old, the model produces a child who can sustain attention through a two-hour live performance without behavioral aids like tablets or screens.
• •Work-home separation via geography: Because Moody's cabin sits 12 to 15 minutes from town with no cell signal, work and home life are separated by a physical commute rather than a mental toggle. He works at his university office or a coffee shop, then drives home where no work communication is possible. This structure replicates pre-smartphone norms where employers could not reach employees after hours without calling a household landline — a genuinely intrusive act.
• •Lifestyle-centric planning over goal-setting: Rather than targeting a specific career outcome, Moody and his wife worked backward from a vision of daily life — time expansion, deep attention, physical presence with family — and followed opportunities that matched it. This approach led to an unpredictable but coherent path: van life, debt elimination, a journalism faculty position, and a cabin without internet. Defining the desired texture of daily life first produces destinations that conventional goal-setting would never generate.