I Was a Tech Addict – And Then I Got Digital Dementia

Fourty-four-year-old Jessica Elefante was, in her own words, a “bullshit artist”. That wasn’t always the intention – the intention was to become a real artist, specifically an author. But there were things that helped her become that way, like the bartending days in her 20s, at the raucous Red Rock West Saloon, between the then-ungentrified Meatpacking District and Chelsea. “The most powerful position I’ve ever held was behind three feet of pine,” she writes. 

About 15 years ago, after her dream of becoming a writer withered, she embarked on what would become a successful career in digital brand strategy and marketing. She specialised in rapidly growing “emerging brands”, she says, “from nothing to a few $100 million in a couple of years, on shelves everywhere nationwide”. It was the early days of social media – the rules of engagement were, well… there were no rules. 

She was part of campaigns she enjoyed then but regrets now, like helping coin the term “She-EO” as a means to get mums to buy on-the-go snacks for their kids. She devised a “phone tree of Disney mums” who could, at a moment’s notice, bury a negative review of a product’s safety with a deluge of glowing appraisals. Then there were the dazzling sums regularly dolled out to celebrities to be papped with X or Y. 

Elefante was always available, 24/7, but eventually, the work caught up with her. She developed brain fog, memory loss and word searching – when your brain can’t summon the next word in the sentence. No friends or doctors believed her condition, really. But years later, a functional medicine doctor would properly asses her symptoms, confirming that she was exhibiting signs of digital dementia, a term coined by German neuroscientist Manfred Spitzer in 2012.

So Elefante quit her job, knowing it – and, by extension, her all-consuming use of digital tech – was the problem. She started Folk Rebellion, a media brand that encouraged a more analogue approach to living, to change our relationship with tech. But her symptoms ratcheted up again as she threw herself wholeheartedly into the work as her personal life and health crumbled, leading to her collapsing with costochondritis, which is inflammation in the chest wall. Taking a step back, she combined everything she'd learned into Raising Hell, Living Well, a book to help people work out what they actually want in life. I spoke to her to find out more.

VICE: Near the end of your marketing career, you were deteriorating physically with what would later be diagnosed as digital dementia. What was that like?
Jessica Elefante: I just couldn't remember things. There was this total disassociation, where I felt like I was walking around in a bubble, floating above the Earth, like someone would be talking, and I would be delayed at responding or even realising they were talking to me. When you drive from point A to point B and don't remember the drive because you're so in your head – I was like that for weeks, if not months on end, just this malaise and unwellness. The most terrifying thing was the memory loss, and it was straight-up memory loss – I could not have told you what I had done the day before. 

It all came to a head on holiday in Hawaii when your then-husband forced you to totally disconnect for a two-week trip.
We were going for a wedding. My husband at the time, his family had a rental property there. So we were gonna go for two weeks, which was a really nice vacation. My boss did try to get me not to go and tried to get me to work while I was away. When we landed, I texted my boss, “Just landed, I'm available.” And my husband turns to me and says, “I'm not doing this with you for the next two fucking weeks. I'm not. People wait their whole lives to come to Hawaii. You're telling your boss to go fuck herself, or you can go home.” And just: instant tears, shame, fear. I'm gonna lose my job. I'm so important. All my clients need me, right? All of these feelings bubble up. That actual rage, fury at my husband. 

But I had a choice to make. I said, “I'm on vacation. I will not be accessible. If you absolutely need to get a hold of me, you can contact my husband.” I put up out-of-offices, texted her, turned everything off, handed my phone over to him and went on vacation.

The light switch moment of my brain turning back on wasn't until the eighth day. I woke up that day totally crystal clear: I could feel the bed sheets on my skin, I could smell the air, I could hear the rooster. Everything was so vivid. I had total clarity of mind. I knew instantly what this was, but nobody had a term for it back then. 

Do you still have to manage those symptoms?
They come and go. It’s completely dependent on my usage. I know when I need a full reset and when I need to reboot. With the book coming out, I still set really good boundaries. But this stuff is designed in a way that, even with those boundaries, it slides, right? If, for example, I know I have a piece of press coming out, I'm more likely to check: Did it go live? What do I have to do? Do I have to share? The more this goes on, the more I use it, and the longer I use it, I start to have symptoms.

Now I have these safety guards: my children and my husband. They'll be the first ones to say, “You brought your phone into the room,” when I don't usually have the phone in the room. Or, “Hey, Mom, I know you have a lot going on. But you did take your computer out?” I don't bring my computer in the living room while we're all there together. I've said to them, “You need to tell me because it's highly addictive. I'm an addict.” 

I save my nights; I save my weekends. I've had so many shitty bosses, I’ve worked until 3 o'clock in the morning, I have been accessible 24/7 almost my entire career, I have earned the right to build what is necessary for my mental health. I feel everyone should have that – you don't have to have to go through the fire like I did. I hope this book shows how not-normal these things are.

You were diagnosed with ADHD later in life. How do you identify what’s digital dementia and what’s ADHD?
They definitely inform one another. I had no idea they would. But I’ve had this inattentive ADHD definitely since I was a child. I've always been the dreamer looking out the window. 

After you quit the corporate world and started Folk Rebellion, you were still subject to the same manipulative systems as before, working with the same companies who just wanted to make money from wellness, and you ultimately stretched yourself to the point of literally collapsing. What happened next?
I had nothing left except to deal with and figure out what I wanted to do. I had to finally just stop – stop making money, stop everything. That's where this book came in. I had said it was technology's fault, that it was always about technology. But it was so much bigger: It was about this culture of influence. It didn't matter if it was tech, or media, or politics, or products. Or that I was being manipulated or manoeuvred in some way without my realising it, or the zeitgeist of the times. I probably did these things because of my own inner influences that I grew up with, of not feeling good enough, of being in the time of the girl boss, She-EO generation and hustle culture. So those things paired with the outward, more insidious influences of what made me who I was and why I kept recreating these problems, which is why, with this book, I have such strict boundaries on what I will and won’t do.

I hold all the skills to market this in a way that could get a tonne of sales and a tonne of press but would leave me potentially with the third downfall, or not being true to who I am now. So I chose not to do that. I'm really just marketing this or publicising this with things that matter to me and going deep instead of superficial and spread everywhere. I want to meet people in real life. I'm really truly embodying what I have learned in the release of this book. 

So, how do I start to deconstruct the forces influencing my thoughts and behaviours and start living intentionally?
The first thing would be, “Plant your flag”. Deciding what your values are. The only way to know if you're being manipulated is: Who are you if you're not being manipulated, right? What do you actually want? What do you believe in? And then finding that thing and protecting it. 

The next thing is, “Peel the onion”. So it's that layering technique: Peel back each layer of who and what is asking something of you. The crux of it is, what are their motivations? Who wins, who loses? What are they trying to gain from whatever they're asking of you? Then, assess the information for its validity. So, this is all critical thinking and also ties into digital literacy. It works for everything. Once you start to look at these things – almost like an inspector – it's really easy to be like, “Oh, this is exactly who wins. This is what they're gonna get out of it. Am I willing to trade X for Y?”

It's not just. “OK, yes, I've decided I'm going to bring this thing into my life,” right? But also, “How does that flow out of me forever in the future.” By taking on the action they want you to do, it doesn't stop at me; it goes through me to the people I influence, whether that's my children, or my communities, or who I write for, knowing I am forever changed. So it never just stops with you – it becomes a part of you, then it goes outward from you. So that's what I call “middle fish”. 

You put all these pieces together, and you just have your answer. Then you have to decide if you're going to stick to it. It's just like a pair of glasses that you put on.

It must feel cool to have this book out and to fulfil the creative dreams you had 20 years ago.
I moved to New York in 2001 because I wanted to be creative. I wanted to be a writer. All I ever wanted to do was write a book. I had that moment of like, “I fucking did it.” And I did it in New York. I was that starving artist – I sold my soul. I had the shitty apartment with the cockroaches in the basement, and I've had every shitty job known to man. But I fucking did it. Out of everything, that is the best feeling in the world. It feels fucking amazing. Thanks for asking that question.

No worries! Thanks for answering it like that. I feel like I'm gonna cry for some reason. But that's great, well done.

Thank you.

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