A family goes for a digital detox but something seems...off

 Who cared that they didn't know the way or this was a new town nobody had even bothered to look the map off of. Yes, he had explicitly told everyone, nay, forbade them, from bringing their digital devices because this was a place of calm and relaxation, away from the distractions of the modern world. He didn't care for their pings and vibrates, the constant chattering and yammering, youtube playing at the same time on five different devices, the vapid stars of the era shouting and puking and what not. The brain could process only so much information at once and modern technology had taken it to the maximum. The mind was being constantly overworked, its ability to think analyze and react to unexpected events had diminished. If you wanted to keep your brain sharp, to be on the tip of your foot you needed a digital detox, away from the messages, the news, the constant updates. Slow and mindful, that's how this event would be. If this worked, he planned on making this a regular thing every few months. Because their brains needed it. Modern technology had reached its peak and was now causing humanity to go down. Much like the Roman empire after its heyday.

The family was a bit pissed, yes. Yvette generally trusted her husband on matters like this but she was getting impatient now. They had driven around for...she checked her old-timey watch...two hours now, asked seven people for the directions and weren't any close to getting to the retreat. The locals...they just took out their phones and checked for the address anyway so they were just outsourcing their tech usage to somebody else. So ridiculous. Thirty more minutes, and she would speak up.

The car slowed down near a group of middle-aged people. Shan rolled the windows down and asked a strangely-dressed man with a silvery hat if he had heard of the so-and-so natural retreat. They were a family, with teenage kids, trying to disconnect from all that crap of the modern world, they'd gotten lost and couldn't find their destination since their digital devices were at home. Could he guide them on where the place might be, perhaps look it up on the web or call them from their website?

The man's face lighted up. "Howdy fellow refugee!," he said, waving at the car. His greet attracted a few of the others and they peeked at the car, trying to figure out who the newcomers were and why their compadre had so eagerly welcomed them. "We're runnin' in the same program as you are bub, if you go a mile south from here, stay straight on this service road without turning to the left or right, you'll see a large Iron gate in front of a victorian mansion. Send one of yer kids to ring the bell on the outside and tell them Robbie sent you, you're there for the uhh cleanse program and they'll know what to do with ya. Have a safe trip fowks," he said, as the went back to listlessly staring at the infinity.

"I told you, I told you there were friendly people out there, see, there's always someone out there to help you because people are realizing this is not sustainable. You can't just live like that you know babe, because it's like...you're not complete by yourself if you need an external instrument that's expensive and sold by a multinational trillionaire company just to feel like a human being, there's something so so wrong about the whole situation, you know. Think about this, what if in the middle ages nobody had a heart, and everybody had to go buy one from the church, or they had to acquire a mouth to speak to others from i dunno, the Prussians or something. And if the Prussians were mad at you, you couldn't talk to each other because they could disable all the working mouths too. It's exactly like that, we need to be careful alright. Now which of you will volunteer to get out and ring the bell," Shan said, looking at the back seat where his three teenagers were.

Nobody spoke up.

"I can't dad, because of the leg thing I told you about...earlier," Nish said.

"Yeah, wasn't that excuse to not come here though," he said smiling.