Details of this online experiment can be found at this site. It’s simple actually. The challenge is to go for one day without turning on your computer, and it’s planned for March 24th. A blogger who calls herself Moonair suggest 7 ways to prepare for it in this post which is pretty funny.
Actually I like the idea and plan to demonstrate my own ability to do it. Twenty-four hours without touching the keyboard, without finding out who has sent me email, without staring at the LCD screen, all of those things are both intriguing and terrifying and are things to which I have become accustomed, some would say even addicted. I do invest much of my time sitting in this chair and doing a variety of things, but all of them seem to involve having my hands on a keyboard or mouse and my eyes glued to a monitor, and all the while there are projects I need to do in my home, in my garden, with my car or with my so-called life outside of the online world. So on March 24th, I won’t be here. I’ll be residing in what I heard someone call the “meatspace.”
For all the benefits that being connected to the world through a computer has brought, with those has also come some losses. Going outside to play is one of them, and not just for kids. I welcome a chance to step away and take a breath.
Some of you may have concluded that I began this effort early, since it has now been more than a week since I made a post here on my blog. Sometimes I hit a wall like that where I just don’t have any urge to write about anything and so my blog sits fallow for that time. Those are sort of mini-vacations from blogging. I used to feel guilty about taking them but I’ve gotten over that now because I realize that you can survive without my words of wisdom for at least short periods periodically.
So what about it? Can you accept the challenge of Shutdown Day 2007 and spend one day without turning on your computer?