Last Friday I shared a post on LinkedIn about Gen Z ‘raw dogging’ flights. For those not in the know (I wasn’t either), that means sitting on a plane with no phone, no music, no entertainment. Just you and your thoughts. Sometimes for 17 hours.
The post has hit over 60,000 impressions. And the comments have been fascinating.
Some people loved it. Others thought it was ridiculous. A few pointed out, quite rightly, that this is just what everyone did before smartphones. One person called it ‘a supreme waste of a flight.’ Another said the real problem isn’t phones, it’s that people don’t like themselves and are running from their own thoughts.
All fair points. And before we get too smug about it, let’s not forget who gave Gen Z their first phone…
But what stuck with me was this question: Why does choosing to sit quietly now feel so unusual that a generation had to give it a name, make it a challenge, and share it online?
It’s that question that tells us something…
Silence Doesn’t Stand A Chance
Think about this morning. The alarm goes off and the phone is in your hand before your feet hit the floor. The commute has a podcast. The queue has a scroll. The lunch break will probably have a screen. Even the walk to get coffee has earbuds in.
We’ve filled every gap. Every pause. Every moment of potential stillness has been replaced with something. And most of the time, we don’t even notice we’re doing it.
Arianna Huffington wrote recently that silence isn’t absence. It doesn’t need to be filled. It’s valuable in its own right, especially now that it’s become so rare.
She’s right. And this isn’t a new idea.
The Space Between Things
The Japanese have a concept called Ma. It’s often described as a ‘pause in time’ or the essential space between things. In design and architecture, it refers to negative space. But it applies just as much to how we live.
Ma is making room for nothing. For being idle. For not cramming your already-busy mind with more content, more noise, more input.
What Gen Z are calling ‘raw dogging’, the Japanese have had a name for it for centuries. The language is different but the principle is similar, and it tells us that the space between things matters.
And one of the reasons it matters so much is because of what happens in that space.
Knowing And Doing Different
In my last newsletter, I wrote about metacognition, the ability to think about our thinking, and why it’s one of the most important skills we can develop right now. But knowing that and actually protecting space for it are two very different things.
One of the commenters on my post, Alec, said he ‘does nothing’ frequently. His wife asks what he’s thinking and he says ‘nothing.’ But as he put it, that’s processing time or inner work. And most people avoid it because it’s uncomfortable.
He’s spot on. Sitting with your own thoughts can be deeply uncomfortable. Which is exactly why so many of us reach for the phone the second there’s a gap. It’s not laziness but avoidance. And it’s become so normalised we barely register it.
The Gen Z crowd who are trying this describe it as ‘an insane dopamine detox’ and a way to ‘heal my attention span.’ In their own language, they’re pointing at something we’re increasingly seeing in attention and cognition research. Our brains need unfilled space to process, to reflect, to connect dots, and to think clearly.
Small Ma, Big Difference
You might not need a long-haul flight to practise this. It might only take five minutes.
Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, practises a daily morning mindfulness routine. Immediately on waking, he notes what he’s thankful for and sets a single intention for the day. Then he places his feet on the floor, breathes, and takes a moment to be present before engaging with emails or meetings.
He calls it a ‘thin slicing’ of mindset training. And if the CEO of Microsoft can protect five minutes before the noise starts, so can we.
So leave the earbuds out on your next walk or run. Sit with your coffee without reaching for your phone. Or let the queue just be a queue.
Because in that space, something happens. You process. You reflect. You notice things you’ve been too busy to see. And over time, you get better at the kind of thinking that actually matters.
You don’t need to call it mindfulness. You don’t even need to call it metacognition. You can even call it ‘raw dogging’ your Tuesday morning commute if that helps…
So, how will you create some Ma in your day?
