I really like this idea — it brings back some of the positive aspects of a Jewish shabbat or a Catholic Sunday, without the strict conservative dogmatic elements. And one Saturday a month seems much more feasible for me (at least to start with) than once a week.

I will be at a professional conference on Saturday, August 4, so it will be easier than usual to turn off the cellphone, not check email, and not watch tv. I’m in!

I’ll also be posting about the idea on my blog, with a trackback to this entry. I hope I can send some of my blog readers your way and encourage them to join the CommFree movement as well. Thanks for reaching out to me after noting my participation in the media consumption diet meme.

-Sandy

Even though it was not intenended so, my own posting today is in a way a response to all this… Sometimes you do have to shut evertything down (and everybody up) to return the taste for life.

Anyways, I won’t use any communication media August 4th becasue (hopefully!) I’ll be travelling.

Just one question: does commfree day activities include drinking tea with friends? ;-)

I think everybody needs to find balance their own way though. That means switch things up somehow on a regular basis, even if it does upset routine. An x-free day won’t work for everyone, and there’s probably no reason why people shouldn’t pick their own day or week to break routine by switching off — or simply by leaving it switched on but cutting the Internet access so it’s function changes to something simpler and less addictive — or even just by switching off the mobile.

What amused me about the Shutdown day that you previously publicised on your blog is that I only logged in to read about it on the Shutdown day :) Imagine trying to create a Shutdown day while you and everyone else is shut down? And that includes your mobile phones, cameras and MP3 players — they are just little computers with bad interfaces!

Thank you Tarleton and also thanks for linking! And I think the idea of “attunement” is rather natural. For some reason, i keep on thinking about a food analogy. If i understand it correctly, it is similar to a situation where, you haven’t had some food that you like for a while, and then when you finally have it, you eat and you analyze every flavor constituting it. Does it make sense? Or i am missing your point?