How the Unplug Initiative Started

I just got a smartphone a few days ago. It quickly became my arch-nemesis. Now, I’m not one of those anti-technology people. I don’t tout myself as a non-conformist, or some other similar title that I have outgrown along with my teen years, but I felt a little sickened, a little threatened by what lay at my fingertips. It was, in short, the whole world.

Not just communication via phone, text, and email, but app upon app that would make my social media presence easier, too. There’s also games–lots of games–music, and other stuff that I honestly don’t know about because I’m already overwhelmed typing this much about it. I feel like a foreigner in a strange land. I’m afraid of what it’s doing to our culture and society, but you don’t even need to be obsessed with your phone to know that. I don’t want to ban smartphones, or other mobile technology, nor do I want to shut down all the inane forms of entertainment that keep growing as we advance as a nation.

I’m just fed up. So I’m going to do something about it. I haven’t traded in my smartphone (yet), and I still have all my social media profiles up. But I’m making a point to reconnect and focus on other things instead. It’s one thing to pop in on Facebook or Tumblr to catch up on things and even enjoy some luxury time. But for far too many of us it has become an addiction. Not only does it suck up time while we procrastinate, but it’s precious time I could be spent learning something I’m interested in or honing a skill I have or visiting the farmer’s market I keep saying I’m gonna go to or, literally anything else.

It’s about time I do something. Thus was born The Unplug Initiative.

Here it goes: the things I learn, discover, do, and find out. Join me and share, if you want.