JUST UNPLUG.

A CNET writer, Scott Stein, acknowledges that it's difficult, but sees the wisdom of so doing.

I've never found screen timers to work. Not for me. They feel like fitness trackers without the coaching.

What has worked? Spending a week and a half, roughly, where I go as offline as I ever can. It's become a tradition each summer: I've joined my in-laws to go across the Atlantic. I've done this, now, six times.

I didn't expect to be this person who cannot unplug. And you don't need to be this person, either. But I've come to realize, the more I take this trip, that I love being forced to live without the internet.

Yes, the cruise ship operators will do what they can to keep you connected, but there's a lot of open ocean.

Like most cruise ships, the Queen Mary 2 has internet access… but it's awful, and slow, and expensive. It's just fast enough to maybe scan Twitter from a cafe. From my room, it doesn't work at all. So I just stay offline, mostly. I get on for about 10 minutes a day, and get off.

Even then, I was slow to accept being unplugged. I'd wait for my emails and a chunk of Twitter feed to load up. I'd peek at work emails. Then even that was taken away from me a few days in, when my phone had somehow kicked me off my work email certificate. I have to be dragged to a state of internetlessness.

The best thing to do might be to leave the devices at home and not bother.

The Queen Mary 2 is a massive ocean liner. It's filled with activities. But after a while, what kept hitting me were the silences. Living without playing music that's streaming from somewhere. Not streaming shows. Not getting endless updates on unfolding news. It made me feel irresponsible, or lazy. Or like I was missing out. Then the anxious feelings faded, a little. I started to feel like I felt decades ago, when I spent summers in camp as a kid with no way to connect to anyone at all.

I took bridge classes! Sitting in a card room, on a quiet morning, meeting new people sitting next to me who also weren't on phones. We had conversations.

I sat down, on a balcony, staring off at the sea.

If I chose to go somewhere, I wouldn't know what's happening somewhere else. I couldn't send a quick tweet about it. I couldn't text someone. I couldn't Google something that wasn't popping up in my head, like I always do now as a memory aid. I didn't start going down rabbit holes of related links and searches, either.

Tuning it out can be healthy, too.

At home, the night after getting back from vacation, my son reminded me to stay offline at dinner, like I always did on the ship. I half-joked that I'm going to call it "Queen Mary 2 mode" from now on. I hope I can keep myself disciplined enough to stay away from the pull of the screen. I need to honor that, and sever the cord.

You don't need a fancy boat ride or a vacation to do this… you just need to disconnect. It could happen anytime. For me, though, that usually feels impossible. I've realized how bad my self-control is. My advice: Find some way to force yourself to be offline. I've enjoyed when the decision has been taken out of my hands. I wish I could give better advice. I'd follow it.

Might be time to find a model railroad club or a bridge club or some other way to politely disengage from the internet clutter.