Tech Abstinence in a Wild Place: 7 Benefits

Jerry Toth
8 min readJan 9, 2020
Pre-industrial life at the infamous “Bamboo House” of the Jama-Coaque Reserve. Photo by Carl Schweizer.

One of my jobs is managing a rainforest preserve in Ecuador. In the middle of this forest is a research station, although it’s really more like a homestead. It’s totally off the grid — there is no Wi-Fi or cell signal. We have a phone hooked up to an old satellite antenna but it usually doesn’t work. At night our primary source of illumination is candlelight.

On average I spend about ten days per month in this forest. I do it partially because it’s my job but mostly because I like being here. One of the (many) benefits of this assignment is the fact that every time I come here, I am forced to disconnect from the internet, phone, computer, and basically from modern civilization.

No internet but lots of really good books. And a nice view.

We’ve been doing this for twelve years. Tech abstinence was initially not our objective, it was simply the reality of the situation. It’s a bamboo house built by hand, isolated in the middle of the lush coastal mountains and surrounded by 1,600 acres of wilderness. Even the road access is tricky — anything heavy from the outside world has to be carried on the back of a mule.

Thus for a chunk of most months for over a decade, I have submitted to the conditions of Tech Abstinence…

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Jerry Toth
Jerry Toth

Written by Jerry Toth

Professional rainforest conservationist, cacao farmer, chocolate entrepreneur, and metaphysical explorer based in Ecuador.

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