I took my family on a digital detox holiday and something extraordinary happened

It was a Thursday evening and, with the day’s work behind us, my family and I settled in to watch TV together. But just a few minutes after Race Across the World started, I looked up and saw that every one of us was glued to a different screen.

Alex, my husband, was staring at his phone, 14-year-old Ted was playing on his iPad, Coco, 12, was texting her friends, and Alfie, 9, was on the Nintendo.

If I wasn’t laughing at celebrity death pranks on my laptop, I would have been really cross. Everyone was in a completely different world.

Yet this behaviour is also completely normal.

As a nation, we are addicted to our devices, to varying degrees. The average Brit loses a weekend a month doomscrolling; that’s 96 minutes a day, and for Gen Z, that jumps to 143 minutes, according to recent research from global technology brand OnePlus.

So, I proposed a digital detox, and amazingly, everyone agreed.

We started with the parameters. Can I listen to music on my phone? No. Can I text my friends? No. Does the screen ban begin in the car? Hell, no.

As a journalist, I am perpetually online, and my gen-alpha kids have never known a time without the internet.

I have first-hand experience of a primary-age boy showing girls porn on his phone, vile misogyny and bullying on unmonitored WhatsApp groups and through my work I’ve spoken to too many bereaved parents left with unanswered questions about social media’s role in their death to allow my family to sleepwalk into unfettered phone use. So I want the family to experience a few days offline.

Researchers at Heidelberg University and the University of Cologne recently conducted a study that shows that just 72 hours without a smartphone can significantly alter brain activity.

So we pack our bags and head for the Mole Valley Resort in the heart of Devon. As soon as we arrived, we put all our screens in the safe. But Alfie has a realisation.

What will happen if the teenager who was feeding our cats needs to get in touch?

He quickly comes up with a solution: ‘Couldn’t he call us on one of those phones on racks?’ He meant a landline.

We head straight to the hot tub, which is glorious, and I find my frazzled popcorn brain immediately soothed by the beautiful surroundings.

There was more than enough to keep us occupied at the resort, which had outdoor and indoor activities, a gym, pool, walking routes, a games room, a lovely restaurant and a gorgeous lodge that even welcomed our ridiculous dog.

There were play areas and outdoor games, and the shop was far enough away that I could buy a bit of peace by sending the kids off to buy sweets and milkshakes. It didn’t take long for us to forget about tech.

Digital detoxes are having a moment. The fact that there is now a market for phone jails, lockable boxes that house phones because adult willpower is insufficient, is deeply concerning.

Fortunately, society is coming around to the addictive qualities of phones and an increasing number of schools – including my son’s primary – are banning smartphones.

The Offline Club in London promotes phone-free cafes and pop-up events, music nights, reading and puzzle parties. Further afield, a host of companies now offer off-grid cabins, Wi-Fi free zones and silent retreats. An increasing number of families are now exploring screen-free Sundays.

This sounds perfect to me, but I’m not sure 80% of my family would agree.

And, I confess, there was one point during our digital detox where I found myself pleading for the sweet release of screens when I desperately wanted to separate myself from the hectic brood to decompress.

I felt hot panic when we got back to our lodge after a busy day and realised I couldn’t make it all stop by dolling out devices. Instead, we played charades and the fishbowl game and, cheesy as it sounds, I laughed so hard my belly ached.

All of us slept well; whether that was because of the lack of blue light or the clear Devon air, I don’t know.

But it was nice to chat to Alex in the morning, rather than the top of his head as he habitually reads the news while drinking his coffee.

We filled the day with pool, table tennis and air hockey, did a pub quiz and explored the local area. As the day wore on, we connected more than we ordinarily do in our busy lives.

And without the lure of his iPad, I found Ted was more aware of what the family needed, taking Alfie to play at the playground, which as a busy teen, he wouldn’t normally be compelled to do.

An unexpected benefit of ditching our phones was that the days felt longer.

After spending the morning immersing ourselves in activities, we were shocked to learn it wasn’t even lunchtime. You don’t realise how much time can be drained by tech until you don’t have any.

I loved not knowing what the time was, what was happening in the world or what the weather was going to be. Which is good, because it rained a lot.

Alex said he didn’t find himself reaching for my phone out of habit, which he thought he might. But he was mildly frustrated about not being able to search what the capital of Cameroon was, or how much a pigeon weighs. (Yaoundé, 300-500 grams.)

And, without being able to Google the rules to Pickleball, the game quickly descended into a ludicrous kick-the-flipflop championship.

Ted, who did a great job despite being a hormonal teen, missed being able to chat to his friends and find escape from his parents and siblings. Coco and Alfie loved it, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to unplug.

We packed up, got into the car, and plugged ourselves in.

While the others gleefully reached for their devices the minute we drove off, I looked wistfully out the window, wishing we could stay another week.

The first thing I did when I got my phone back, was Google the resort’s Christmas availability.