National Day Of Unplugging: Take A Tech Break This Weekend

We at HuffPost Living are always looking for ways to help you de-stress, relax and get your life back under control. That's why we'd like to encourage you to take a one-day spring break -- from your smartphone, that is.

The second annual National Day of Unplugging is this weekend, running for the 25 hours from sundown Friday, March 4, to sundown, Saturday, March 5. You are invited to disconnect from the Internet and reconnect with family, friends and the world around you. In other words, it's time to unplug and recharge.

Developed by the non-profit organization Reboot, the National Day of Unplugging is
guided by the Sabbath Manifesto, an ongoing project that encourages people to slow down their lives by avoiding technology.

To aid you in your digital detox, Reboot even offers a handy, albeit unexpected, tool: a smartphone app. If downloaded, it serves as a kind of reverse FourSquare, announcing to your Facebook and Twitter communities that you are temporarily logged out.

"Believe me, we fully get the irony of using a high-tech app to announce a low-tech day," wrote Reboot spokeswoman Tanya Schevitz to The New York Times in -- further irony -- an e-mail. "But really, what better way to tell your followers that you won't be tweeting on the weekend."

Also available on the National Day of Unplugging website are cell phone sleeping bags to shield you from temptation, as well as phonekerchiefs -- hankies made with silver fibers that effectively block incoming calls and texts.

How will you be observing the National Day of Unplugging? A nature walk? Lunch with friends? Let us know in the comments below!

Comments

[damienmartyn]

01:04 PM on 04/05/2011

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[pierre F Lherisson]

06:33 PM on 03/05/2011

It would be very effective if the people extended the National Day of unplugging by keeping their TV unplugged for the next six consecutive months and listen to AM radio for news and talk shows. Such moratorium will send a strong to Hollywood to cleanup their acts.

[TheLibraryOfCodex]

02:19 PM on 03/05/2011

Today, I'm unplugging from human interactions and spending a relaxing day listening to Foghat on YouTube.

[stepintothelight]

01:16 PM on 03/05/2011

What???
Wait???
Starting ...... Now!!!

Oh $h!t!!!!

[billyhunter]

11:43 AM on 03/05/2011

good gracious....setting up an unplugging day for folks to observe, with less than 24-hrs notice. Smooth move exlax. Next time, why not get a head of steam up so that it has more observants?

[StephenJK]

06:36 AM on 03/05/2011

Will do next weekend....Black Ops has double XP this weekend. Even though I'm already 15th prestige, I still need to gold my guns out. You know, just so I have them.

[darcylu]

02:28 AM on 03/05/2011

I will do my best starting at noon.

[Mr Sick Of Greed]

10:48 PM on 03/04/2011

and stop checking your stupid facebook page to see if you have a new "friend".....
look at the world around you and in be awe of nature, go to a park, and have a picnic with a special person, just get out of the house, if you can......it feels better, technology is too much a part of our lives....i find it to be overwhelming.....time to leave this internet site....hope most of you would join me

[Jeanne Ball]

09:59 PM on 03/04/2011

Another way of unplugging, is to turn off the Wi-fi and enjoy a more settled home environment with less electro-magnetic pollution. We always unplug the Wi-fi modem when we sit to meditate. Turning the attention inward during meditation and plugging into silence is a great way to recharge tired brain cells and create more independence from technology habits.

[M4dwoman]

09:55 PM on 03/04/2011

Look at the time. Guess I didn't get the message.

[RedRat]

04:43 PM on 03/04/2011

What if tech is what allows me to recharge. Not kidding. Tech is what connects me to the outside world. That is what recharges me.

[wm1066]

03:13 PM on 03/04/2011

Right, its 10 degrees outside with three feet of snow ...everywhere, my cabin fever is 110% and you want me to unplug from the world outside....right