It’s late Friday afternoon. Lent is a bit more than a week away. It’s an excellent time to start thinking about Sabbath; what we might give up and how we might slow down. There’s a call for “digital natives” (generally people who grew up with the computers and the Internet) to take a day off next Friday.
“[The] National Day of Unplugging, from sunset on March 4 to sunset on March 5—a day when ‘people across the nation will reclaim time, slow down their lives and reconnect with friends, family, the community, and themselves.’ Reboot, the nonprofit sponsoring the event as part of their Sabbath Manifesto project, includes ‘Ten Principles’ to guide participation: 1) Avoid technology; 2) Connect with loved ones; 3) Nurture your health; 4) Get outside; 5) Avoid commerce; 6) Light candles; 7) Drink wine; 8) Eat bread; 9) Find silence; 10) Give back. But, according the group’s website, the key principle of focus for the day is the avoidance of technology.
Tanya Schevitz, National Communications Coordinator for Reboot, however, makes clear that the nonprofit, which itself heavily leverages various online and social media technologies to communicate with and connect people, is not hostile toward technology. Indeed, Reboot will launch a National Day of Unplugging smartphone app on February 25 that will remind users to unplug and allow them to share ‘their own principles to develop a modern, personal interpretation of a day of rest.’ Another Reboot project, 10Q, offers an online space for reflection during the ten days between the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, emailing participants questions for reflection each morning and sending all of their responses back to them on the eve of Rosh Hashanah the following year. They’re hardly Luddites, that is.
‘The idea is to bring balance to the use of technology,’ Schevitz explains. She continues, ‘The National Day of Unplugging is really about recognizing that it’s important to take a pause from technology—to reconnect to people who are all around us but who are basically lost in the noise of the relentless deluge of information.’ “
Read the full article here.
Leaving aside the irony of a phone app that tells you to unplug, the idea of turning off for a bit is an ancient and honorable one. It’s certainly in keeping with the biblical understanding of Sabbath, which was understood to be a regular reminder that we are not our vocations, we are who we are because of our relationship to God and to each other.
The essay goes on at some length thinking through the implications of taking a digital time-out. There are jewish scholars quoted who challenge us to think through how we decide which technology to turn off and which technology (like tableware) to keep. There’s a Muslim scholar who discusses the positive aspects of technology in support of our regular prayer lives. And there’s some thinking about what the deeper implications of the felt need to unplug might mean.
All in all it’s worth the read. Hurry. You can still print it out before sunset.