Baratunde: Unplug

One of the bloggers I follow linked to this article today: "#Unplug: Baratunde Thurston Left The Internet For 25 Days, And You Should Too". I don't know what prompted me to click on it... unplugging isn't necessarily something I'm interested in enough to read about. But. I'm so glad I did. I have, very quickly, come to love the author, Baratunde Thurston.

In my small pockets of reading time today (=nursing), I read as much by Baratunde as I could. Like his article "#Unplug" (and his hilarious Twilight coverage!). I found so many quotes in this article that I appreciated for one reason or another. I should probably preface each of the following quotes I pulled from the article, but that'd take too much time right now (and I'd rather go read more of his articles, etc.)

Physically, mentally, digitally, I refused to stay still.

I had begun to resent the emails and the mobile notifications, the many ways that an odd and wide assortment of people dared to enter my life.

I just wanted to be mentally free of obligations, most of which asserted themselves in some digital fashion.

Call me self-employed, call me an artist, call me Supreme Allied Commander of My Multi-Hyphenate Life; they all translate to “working all the time.”

I would not generate any activity whatsoever on any social network whatsoever, including, but not limited to, seeing, reading, downloading, syncing, sending, submitting, posting, pinning, sharing, uploading, updating, commenting, tagging, rating, liking, loving, upvoting, starring, favoriting, bookmarking, plus-oneing, or re-anythinging.

The more I tried to control these data streams, the more I realized that everything is too integrated.

I was stunned at the cumulative level of noise I had embraced and frustrated at how difficult it was to silence. Had I really granted all of this?

Since I couldn’t query my online network for local dining and culture options, my massage therapist became my recommendation engine. She told me of several restaurants and sites to check out. She transmitted this data by writing down the names on a piece of paper.

By the end of that first week, the quiet rhythm of my days seemed far less strange. I was less stressed about not knowing new things; I felt that I still existed despite not having shared documentary evidence of said existence on the Internet.

I stopped consciously thinking about the experiment and just started living it. I was reading long books, engaging in meaningful conversations, and allowing my mind to wander and make passive connections I had previously short-circuited with social queries, responses, interruptions, and steady documenting and sharing of unripened experiences.

One major feature of industrialization was the adoption of leisure time for those of us not among the leisure class. Yet one major feature of the Networked Age is our de-created ability to disengage. Will the concept of downtime have been a temporary blip in the history of civilization?

[http://www.fastcompany.com/3012521/unplug/baratunde-thurston-leaves-the-internet?]