The backlash is gaining momentum. I am hearing more and more about people who are fed up with information overload and the burden of being constantly connected. Reboot, the organization that I linked to a few posts ago who created the Sabbath Manifesto, launched the first National Day of Unplugging today. They invited everyone to "put down the cell phone, stop the status updates on Facebook, shut down Twitter, sign out of e-mail and relax." Aimed at Jewish professionals who are interested in re-inventing the Sabbath, this is exactly the kind of movement that people all over the United States can benefit from, regardless of religious affiliation.
Strategic Trend and Marketing Consultant Wendy Dembo is noticing activity of this kind on both coasts. She pointed out that The New York Times is talking (watch the video!) about Reboot's project. And another article about the National Day of Unplugging appears in the style section of that newspaper. It's a new lifestyle!
Employers are taking notice as well. The March issue of Entrepreneur magazine published an article called "Email is making you stupid" that reveals "The average information worker – basically anyone at a desk – loses 2.1 hours of productivity every day to interruptions and distractions." People's brains just are not built for the kind of multi-tasking that has become commonplace. The article also cites examples of companies who are working to change this: "Companies including U.S. Cellular and Deloitte & Touche have mandated less e-mail use, encouraged more face-to-face contact and experimented with programs such as 'no e-mail Friday'. The results often are surprising: employees build rapport with colleagues – and they save time. Co-workers can settle something in a two-minute phone conversation that might have required three e-mails per person." Surprise!
I hope to see more and more about this in the media, and if I'm not seeing it, I'll make some news of my own. National Tech-free Day will be the next full-moon Saturday, on June 26. In the mean time, I will be planning some smaller tech-free events over the next few months. Join me!
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Here Now
When my husband Martin was last up in Nevada City, he spotted a great bumper sticker. Along the lines of “I'd rather be fishing” or “I'd rather be golfing”, this one stated: “I'd rather be here now.” As in, not with the person on the other side of this cell phone or (god forbid!) text conversation, but right here, in this car, just driving. That's my beef with all the people sitting in cafes with their laptops or walking across the street, talking on their cell phones. They aren't where they look like they are. Their bodies are there, but their brains and attention are far away.
This past Sunday, my intention was to be Here Now with my family for 24 hours. No computers, no cell phones. I took it a few steps farther and eliminated cars (the better to keep us Here) and clocks because, well, as I discussed in my last post, I am a slave to the clock and that aspect of our technology-free day was really the only thing I was worried about.
So, you might be wondering, did we enjoy a weekend of familial bliss? Did we sit around, tell stories, get to know each other better? Did we spend time walking up on the hill that is our backyard and fly kites, munch on a picnic, watch the sun setting over the fog bank? Well, no. We did not, strictly speaking, break any of the “rules” but we also did not spend that time away from technology getting any closer to my goal of social intimacy and heeding our natural rhythms.
We were hit by two gigantic and unexpected obstacles that thwarted our plans. One, Martin ended up “on call” at work for the final push of a big product launch at his start-up. He wants to keep his job, so we couldn't really be unreachable. Second, my entire family came down with an awful stuffed up, coughing, miserable, feverish illness. Martin found a great workaround to avoid clocks, but still take aspirin and cough medicine every four hours – a timer!
So, from the very beginning, none of the 24 hours went according to my plan, but it was certainly a relaxing day. My original vision for Saturday night was to sit on our deck with a glass of wine and watch the sun set behind Sutro Tower with my little family as a sort of opening ritual. Instead the day went out with a flurry of text messaging to coordinate a meet-up with friends at the local pizza parlor. It was toddler mayhem with three little ones and only four adults, but who needs technology if you have good friends and a couple of beers? Social intimacy? Heck yeah! On our walk home, we watched an enormous almost-full moon rise over Bernal Hill and that really was a spiritual moment. Connection with nature? Check!
Next stop in my fantasy of a technology-free evening was supposed to be lying in bed with my husband and having a deep conversation about our hopes and dreams. Instead, Martin had to go to work so I read a magazine until I fell asleep at what I am sure was an hour so early that I never would have let myself close my eyes if I had known what time it actually was. Paying attention to my natural rhythm never felt so good.
The next morning we were all really sick, and it was an easy decision to blow off the birthday party. My dream of walking up to Bernal Hill and flying a kite after a nice picnic was replaced by lying on the couch and eating random things whenever we felt hungry. Martin mostly worked and napped. Peter napped. I fumed about not having things go my way and not being able to pick up the phone and complain about it. I missed my friends. I was deeply disappointed. I started trying to figure out how many hours we had left in the day.
Finally, as the day drew to a close, I got my wish of sitting on the deck and watching the sun set. So what if we were drinking hot tea instead of a glass of wine? After it was officially dark, I turned on the cell phone and walked over to a friend's house who had been borrowing my laptop. We sat in her dining room and watched the now-full moon rise over the neighbor's fence. It was magical.
This past Sunday, my intention was to be Here Now with my family for 24 hours. No computers, no cell phones. I took it a few steps farther and eliminated cars (the better to keep us Here) and clocks because, well, as I discussed in my last post, I am a slave to the clock and that aspect of our technology-free day was really the only thing I was worried about.
So, you might be wondering, did we enjoy a weekend of familial bliss? Did we sit around, tell stories, get to know each other better? Did we spend time walking up on the hill that is our backyard and fly kites, munch on a picnic, watch the sun setting over the fog bank? Well, no. We did not, strictly speaking, break any of the “rules” but we also did not spend that time away from technology getting any closer to my goal of social intimacy and heeding our natural rhythms.
We were hit by two gigantic and unexpected obstacles that thwarted our plans. One, Martin ended up “on call” at work for the final push of a big product launch at his start-up. He wants to keep his job, so we couldn't really be unreachable. Second, my entire family came down with an awful stuffed up, coughing, miserable, feverish illness. Martin found a great workaround to avoid clocks, but still take aspirin and cough medicine every four hours – a timer!
So, from the very beginning, none of the 24 hours went according to my plan, but it was certainly a relaxing day. My original vision for Saturday night was to sit on our deck with a glass of wine and watch the sun set behind Sutro Tower with my little family as a sort of opening ritual. Instead the day went out with a flurry of text messaging to coordinate a meet-up with friends at the local pizza parlor. It was toddler mayhem with three little ones and only four adults, but who needs technology if you have good friends and a couple of beers? Social intimacy? Heck yeah! On our walk home, we watched an enormous almost-full moon rise over Bernal Hill and that really was a spiritual moment. Connection with nature? Check!
Next stop in my fantasy of a technology-free evening was supposed to be lying in bed with my husband and having a deep conversation about our hopes and dreams. Instead, Martin had to go to work so I read a magazine until I fell asleep at what I am sure was an hour so early that I never would have let myself close my eyes if I had known what time it actually was. Paying attention to my natural rhythm never felt so good.
The next morning we were all really sick, and it was an easy decision to blow off the birthday party. My dream of walking up to Bernal Hill and flying a kite after a nice picnic was replaced by lying on the couch and eating random things whenever we felt hungry. Martin mostly worked and napped. Peter napped. I fumed about not having things go my way and not being able to pick up the phone and complain about it. I missed my friends. I was deeply disappointed. I started trying to figure out how many hours we had left in the day.
Finally, as the day drew to a close, I got my wish of sitting on the deck and watching the sun set. So what if we were drinking hot tea instead of a glass of wine? After it was officially dark, I turned on the cell phone and walked over to a friend's house who had been borrowing my laptop. We sat in her dining room and watched the now-full moon rise over the neighbor's fence. It was magical.
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