tech fast

decreasing our reliance on personal technology (mostly cell phones)

Feb 20, 2026

Welcome back readers, and welcome, new readers –

After taking a break for January (and most of February), we’re back with the first post of 2026 – hopefully your year is going well so far. It’s been busy for Trudi with a move halfway around the world (from southwestern Pennsylvania to South Korea) and Norann has some exciting family news which she shares below.

The season we’re in (at least for Norann and Marianne in New York’s Hudson Valley) is one of unremitting cold. Everything is a bit of a slog: just stepping out of doors requires preparation and resolve due to the frigid temperatures and unfriendly wind. On the positive side, we’ve been enjoying winter activities: sledding, sleighing, and skating. Now that we’re (hopefully) through the depths of winter, maple trees are starting to be tapped in anticipation of the day when it gets warm enough for the sap to run.

Personal use of technology is a topic that’s been in discussion on our communities. In common with probably most people in the developed world, we in the Bruderhof have been concerned about the effects of technology on ourselves, our relationships, and on our children. Following a series of meetings about use of tech in November, we decided to try a community-wide tech fast during Advent. It was up to each individual how to implement the fast, but we all agreed to find ways to decrease our use of personal technology for a month, and in particular to drastically reduce digital entertainment.

To offset the fast, we also decided to feast by intentionally spending more time enjoying each other’s company, a timely decision in the joyful Advent season. We also decided that on each of the thirty-some Bruderhof locations around the world, a short gathering for prayer would be held daily (in addition to the community meals and other gatherings and worship meetings that happen daily). Each community has this scheduled in the way that works best for their location, and the meeting is attended by anyone whose schedule allows. These meetings have continued into the new year: a short moment in an often busy day when we take time for a word from Scripture and intercede for this troubled and suffering world.

Back to use of tech: we thought it would be good to write a post on this topic. However, when we looked through our archives we realized that we already had: Tech in our Daily Lives written in August 2023 is still a pretty good summary of our thoughts. So please start by clicking through and reading that, and as a bonus you will be rewarded with beautiful pictures of high summer. We’ve added some further thoughts are below – as always, feel free to write in with questions.

Trudi – in Yeongwol, South Korea

I learned how to use a computer in 2016, during a gap year after high school. (I’d learned how to type in my early teens, using my family’s “word processor” typewriter.) I got a flip phone when I began university. After graduating in 2019, I didn’t use a phone at all until I traveled to Korea in early 2021. That was my first time using a smartphone, and I remember sitting on my bed figuring it out. Didn’t take long at all. A whole new world of convenience opened up for me.

In some ways, I love having a smartphone. I’ve been overseas from my parents for eight years now, so video calls have been a great blessing. No matter where I’m living, I can reach out to friends and family. I do have one regret, though: I wish I’d known from the first how to treat my phone as a tool. I was unaware of how much I would come to depend on it. I’m not really a scroller, and yet somehow I still get stuck on my phone: checking this, changing that.

Thankfully, now I know it’s a tool, not a companion, and that I’m okay without it. I give myself little challenges —this is embarrassing to admit—like taking a walk, visiting a friend, or eating a meal without bringing my phone along! My beloved analogue wristwatch keeps the time.

Like any of you aware of the richness of a “tech-wise” life, I want to reclaim the fullness of “life-before-smartphones”.

June 2025, my parents playing with grandkids (one pic to represent numerous occasions which were not photographed:)

This January, on Marianne’s recommendation, I finally listened to Andy Crouch’s book The Tech-wise Family. At first I thought that since I am not a parent it wouldn’t really apply to my life. I was wrong—now I’ve tried to implement some of Crouch’s suggestions.

I’ll share the best and biggest change for me: I now “get up before my phone and go to bed after”. In other words, I don’t look at my phone for at least the first hour of my day, and I end the day with something other than technology: my physical Bible, or a wholesome book, (or a Korean picture book—that’s my latest favorite), while my phone charges on the far side of my room.

After waking up each morning, I make, eat, and tidy up breakfast while my phone sleeps on. Most mornings, I eat breakfast with my neighbor Helen, a widow whom I traveled to Korea with. We are companions in a mother-daughter sort of way. It’s tempting to read the news or play morning music, but I’ve decided to do all that later. As Crouch says, we need a time of day when God alone is enough. I have a blessed hour of peace, a chance to begin the day with a prayerful heart, appreciate good food and conversation (or quiet) with Helen, and enjoy the rare freedom of no device.

Marianne – in Woodcrest, upstate New York

I wrote in our earlier post on Tech in our Daily Lives about how our family uses personal technology, and the basic framework for that hasn’t changed. The biggest difference has been navigating use of technology as our children get older – our two oldest sons are in 9^th and 11^th grade. Both of them are day students at the Mount Academy, the high school operated by the Bruderhof and attended by children of Bruderhof members as well as other students from our neighborhood and farther afield (Norann is a house parent for one of the Mount Academy boarding houses).

An experiment with our oldest son having fulltime use of a laptop ended a couple months into the school year when parents and teachers both realized that the distractions outweighed most of the learning benefits. The laptop certainly made some aspects of high school more convenient: communicating with teachers and other students, revising papers, and doing research, and in the months since we changed course, we’ve found a balance between unlimited access to a computer and an as-needed framework that we hope is teaching our son to have a healthy relationship with technology. Of course we’ve had plenty of conversations about this change, and about the fact that a little friction in a process is not necessarily a bad thing, and that creatively solving problems is a skill he will value long after his formal studies are over. And because we know that technology will almost inevitably be part of his working life, he (and his peers) can take courses at the Mount Academy on subjects like computer science, technical drawing, and videography alongside their paper-based study of literature and history. We’re fortunate because the values we as parents want for our children are closely aligned with the high school: to be able to maintain focus on hard work, think creatively, and communicate effectively. All of these are better accomplished with books and face-to-face communication.

The main casualty of the tech fast in our household was the Wordle streak which my daughter and I had been maintaining; as Trudi said, it’s a little embarrassing to realize how reluctant you are to abandon daily technology rituals, or how quickly your hand reaches for your phone in moments of boredom. We restarted Wordle on January 1, but some of the other forms of online entertainment that our younger children had gotten used to and that were dropped for the tech fast have been seemingly forgotten. Instead, during the past couple months we have spent untold hours playing cards and board games and doing puzzles; the game of the moment is Rummikub and there is an incredibly competitive game almost every evening.

Norann – from Danthonia, New South Wales, Australia, but currently living in upstate New York at the Mount Community

Here are a few ways I chose to implement the tech fast:

went off Strava
posted on social media much less often
chose one day a week (rather than every day) to respond to questions on social media)
read more books
didn’t respond to texts immediately (unless they were urgent)
did not do nature photography on walks

Things I’m carrying forward out of the fast:

will implement 1 and 2 again during Lent, perhaps even more drastically because it took a lot of daily (self-made) pressure away
have continued with 3, 4, and 5
not doing nature photography was a hard habit to break, but made me more present to beauty, and was a reminder to me how I used to “tuck pictures away in my heart”.…I’m trying to stick to to it during my daily 5K with Chris, also so that we can be more present to each other.

Sunrise on our kitchen bench during morning devotionals.

What we’re enjoying

Trudi

. . . a wonderful tech-wise winter vacation in Yeongwol. I often spend time with the kids here, enjoying the outdoors: soccer, hikes, hiding games, skating and playing on our frozen river. Enjoy more details of winter vacation on my substack Why Korea.

Helen, in her grandmotherly way, has inspired the kids to take notice of the bird life around here. We both love seeing kids getting excited over new bird sightings. As Helen pointed out, it’s equally wonderful to see a child take notice of and appreciate the birds we see every day—it’s a sense of awe that only a tech-wise life can cultivate.

a bird that came looking for food as I wrote this. . .

Marianne

I’d like to recommend that readers subscribe to a new podcast by my friend and fellow Bruderhof member Timothy Keiderling. Starting in Genesis, this will be a weekly chapter-by-chapter journey through the Bible. Each episode will contain one chapter, one key insight, and one point of application – I highly recommend it to anyone looking for ways to understand the Bible more deeply.

Norann

I’m enjoying a lot a the moment, but here are the top four things:

Celebrating the engagement of our middle son, Mason, to Vicki. Mason, after finishing his degree in paramedicine in Sydney, Australia, moved up to New York City to complete his graduate year of work. There he met Vicki, who was studying optometry. A strong friendship – forged over their shared love of faith, cooking, running, and literature (especially poetry) – blossomed quickly into something more. It’s been a gift to get to know Vicki since moving here in August, and we are beyond blessed to welcome her into our family as another daughter.

Their wedding is set for late May, after Vicki graduates.

Since announcing their engagement, Chris and I have been receiving lots of excellent questions about courtship, dating, and engagements at the Bruderhof, and we’re thinking to do our next video answering some of those questions. So feel free to drop any questions you want us to answer below.

Reading Plough’s new edition of its Lenten devotional Bread and Wine. This expanded edition has readings that stay with you on your journey from Lent, through Easter, and right up to Pentecost. I felt weary as I picked it up on the first day of Lent, and felt refreshed as soon as I had finished the first reflection. Get yourself a copy here.
Experiencing the Lunar New Year, Ramadan, and Lent being observed all at once in our residential life facility here at the Mount Academy. It’s been a privilege to care for students from Japan, Nigeria, Australia, UK, and around the US this academic year, and watching each of them engage with their cultural and religious traditions is a gift.
Watching my husband, Chris, coach the Mount Academy’s JV basketball team.
Chris has been coaching junior basketball in regional Australia for a decade, and it’s been a joy to watch him continue here with a team who are mostly freshmen.

It’s more than just teaching them the fundamentals of the game: it’s character development, learning to work as a team, and reaping the dividends of disciplined training.

This is the last week of the season, but it’s a great way to get youngsters through the coldest part of the year.

Capturing the glory of winter with my camera. Because I’m a residential life team leader for a group of young ladies, getting out on the weekend (regardless of the weather) is essential to reset our brains in between studying for chemistry, practicing for Science Olympiad, or off-season volleyball and soccer clinics. We’ve been sledding, hiking, and discovering new places while thoroughly rugged up to enjoy the great outdoors. I had forgotten how the evening sun creates an extra glow through the frosted trees and is reflected on the snow. I’ll end with a few recent captures: