The Amish are asking questions about technological determinism that matter for the outside world, namely can humans tame technology, or does it control our destiny? — Pixabay
My mobile phone has a photo of pretty flowers on the lock screen but I usually rush past it in order to check my messages or scroll.
I do waste a lot of time using it – spending some 97 minutes on it in just a morning.
News matters, sure, but maybe scanning five sites counts as doom scrolling? And then there's the cat videos on YouTube or a recipe on TikTok.
All that is detracting from my offline relationships but the online world is addictive and resisting it is hard work.
Smartphones have conquered much of the world but the Amish of Lancaster County are putting up a strong resistance.
The Amish are known for their simple lifestyle and often reject modern technology and conveniences and live separately from the non-Amish world.
With green hills, picture-book farms and covered bridges, the idyllic county in Pennsylvania is home to the oldest and largest Amish community, with around 45,000 members, in the United States.
The group, founded in 1729 or 1730, is a conservative religious community that distrusts new technologies from cars to Zoom. I headed here, thinking: where else could I better learn to turn off my smartphone in a serious digital detox?
Going offline
I was surprised to find I could book my bed and breakfast in Amish Country online.
Later, I am all set to switch off my phone but find myself reading up on the Amish online during my flight.
Emerging from the radical Anabaptist movement during the Reformation, the group's founding father, Jakob Ammann, split from the main branch of the Anabaptists, the Mennonites, in 1693, deciding they were not strict enough.
What emerged was the "Ordnung," the name of the collection of mostly unwritten behavioural rules derived from the Bible, such as voluntary adult baptism and a modest lifestyle with deliberate separation from mainstream society.
Persecuted in Central Europe, the Amish emigrated to Pennsylvania in the early 18th century. Today, the majority of the community still lives here, with 90,000 believers. There are about four times as many across North America, though they are no longer a homogeneous group, but are divided between two main currents.
There are the moderate "New Order" Amish, who integrate modern elements into their daily lives, while "Old Order" Amish are more conservative. They largely reject electricity and speak "Pennsylvania Dutch," a language based on East Palatine German.
I struggle without my phone on the way to Gordonville, trying to find my accommodation for three days. My smartphone is off and it is hard to find my quarters in the maze of country roads as I do not tend to carry a road map any more these days. Thankfully, I can rely on the satnav in my rental car.
Electricity only for guests
"Kansht du Deitsch shvetza?" asks hostess Anna Riehl upon my arrival at the bed and breakfast. I do indeed speak German, yes, but her antiquated dialect is almost incomprehensible. She continues in English, explaining her family has owned Beacon Hollow Farm in Gordonville for seven generations.
Riehl's own home is not connected to the electricity grid, in accordance with the "Ordnung." But they make concessions for guests: in the holiday cottage, you can turn on the lights.
In the kitchen, there is a coffee machine while in the wood-panelled bedroom I see a fan and hand-sewn quilted bedspreads. I also spot a washing machine and a freezer. Wait, a freezer?
Often admired or ridiculed as a relic of the past, the Amish do not live outside space and time. Riehl wears a simple calf-length dress, often with an apron, always with a white cap over her hair which she does up in a bun. Her husband Ben has a flowing beard, wears a straw hat and black trousers with braces. They drive horse-drawn carriages or scooters with handlebar baskets instead of cars.
Visually, they match the stereotype. But if an emergency arises, "English" neighbours – the blanket term for all non-Anabaptists – are hired as drivers.
Retro-futuristic mix
The Amish don't demonise innovations wholesale nor are they technically unskilled. The restrictions they choose foster ingenuity, and the Ordnung seems to allow for detours. Fellow believer and autodidact Aaron Blank modifies modern agricultural machinery so that horses can pull it. Tool batteries power room lamps. What is wrong with LED lights on a carriage anyway?
But the Riehls refuse to embrace mobile phone technology. The signal does reach the farm, but they do not have mobile phones – though they do have a portable land line phone.
Guests though may use their smartphones just as they are allowed to use the light switch.
I dig mine out of the suitcase. It shows two bars of reception. True abstinence is therefore required, but here in Amish country, I am in very good company.
I lock my phone in the kitchen cupboard and feel strangely relieved. What will I do with all my time now?
I climb into the rental Jeep and go on a trip to explore the area and this time, I am smarter and pack with me a map of Lancaster County from the Riehls' place.
Dozens of Amish farms are marked as attractions, including one owned by Jesse and Anna Ruth Lapp, which I enter as my destination.
The family invites visitors to their Old Windmill Farm in Ronks for a hayride, milking practice and to bottle-feed calves. That sounds touristy but it will allow me to talk to the rather reserved believers more easily.
Teens try technology
"These mobile phones are dangerous," says Anna Ruth. In Amish communities, teens have a "rumspringa" phase, when they are no longer under parental authority but, being unbaptized, are not yet bound by church rules. At that time, even her teenagers bought one.
"You become what you see," she warned and confiscated the first one from her children. They went and bought another. "We can only teach and preach," she says, looking upwards.
As a necessary secondary income, many Amish people run a business alongside their farming operations, offering farm holidays. They may do modern marketing but indirectly, often aided by "English" friends and companies. That is how you can find Riehl's holiday home online.
The Lapps have a farm blog, the Blanks have a simple website, and neighbour Leah Ruth Stoltzfus even advertises wellness products on Facebook.
Is this not a contradiction of the rules? Back at the cottage, I feel an urge to check my phone, maybe quickly glance at my apps, but just as I reach the kitchen cupboard, I manage to resist. Digital abstinence requires discipline, even when the conditions are as favourable as they are in Lancaster County.
I take a deep breath, sit on the veranda and watch the sun set behind grain silos instead.
The Amish seek answers
The next day, I have an appointment with Steve Nolt. He is a professor of Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County. Every member of an autonomous church district can propose new technologies, he says. After a practical trial phase, the community votes on their adoption. The district bishop has veto rights.
But the key is "to mitigate the impact of technology on human interaction and social organisation," says Nolt. In doing so, the Amish are asking questions about technological determinism that matter for the outside world too, namely can humans tame technology, or does it control our destiny?
Even the Amish are struggling to find an answer. They say cars isolate believers spatially and socially from one another and are therefore to be rejected, as are televisions with their negative worldly influences.
Smartphones also spread these, but they simultaneously serve communication – which is desirable.
Blank shrugs. He does not allow his 20-year-old son's smartphone in the house but tolerates it outside as a kind of teaching tool. "We are not saints, but just normal people like you," he says.
What have I learned? Surprisingly, by the second day, I only miss my phone for making calls. Technology seems to be optional – but probably only for a holiday.
Who needs a smartphone for distraction when there is something new to discover? But abstaining in everyday life does not seem realistic to me, especially when even the Amish cannot manage a complete digital fast.
I go to the kitchen cupboard, take out my phone and vow before leaving that I shall incorporate at least some of my digital detox into my daily life.
I am not so attracted by the photo of the flowers on my screen any more, I realise. – dpa/Tribune News Service
