Digital Detox week has arrived. Time to give your head a bit of a rest. And Plug Out.
Run by Adbusters, and spanning from today until Sunday, this is a great opportunity to take a break from all the binary buzz in your life. So turn off your computer, find the off button on your smartphone, sign out of Facebook and give Twitter the heave-ho. But don’t panic! Life still goes on. Here are our top 10 digital-free activities for the following week:
1. Slow down – just because Facebook is inviting you to seven gallery openings in one evening you don’t have to go to them all. Go to one or even, don’t go to any!
2. Take the time to walk somewhere or to walk nowhere – just have a wander around and see what you find. You might come across a lovely little café that you’d never discovered before, one that, heaven forbid, might not even be mentioned online.
3. Read a book. (Not a Kindle.)
4. Make something – a cake, a card, a rug out of old t-shirts or a notebook out of scrap paper.
5. Fix something – sew that button on to that dress, darn that sock or sew up the hole in that bag – it might save you having to buy a new one.
6. Learn to knit or crochet. Actually quite good skills to have. It means you can buy horrible old jumpers from charity shops, unravel them and then turn them into something you actually want. Or teach someone else to do something, knitting or crocheting if you already know what you’re doing. Or calligraphy, the art of origami or whistling if you’re more that way inclined.
7. Play a board game. Totally under-rated but incredibly fun. Britain’s Chess champion agrees.
8. Have a little hoola hoop. It’s very good for your tummy muscles.
9. Plant something. Vegetables are great because then you can eat them. Failing that, flowers are nice because then you can look at them.
10. Sit down, relax, and think hard about something for a long time (at least ten minutes). You may not be used to this after years of being chained to the internet but give it a try, you might find you like it.
Katherine Hui is currently the Social site editor at Green Thing, a web-based public service in London that inspires people to lead greener lives through creative content.
Before this, she worked as the Development Manager at Social Innovation Camp, an organization that encourages people to use web and mobile-based technology to mobilise social change. She oversaw 300 ideas submission and helped build 20 prototypes – five of which have gone on to get further funding or investment.
Katherine’s came over to the UK form Canada in 2007 for an MSc program at the London School of Economics. Before arriving in London, she managed a small environmental start-up in Vancouver called the Canadian Climate Change Alliance.
Katherine is football mad. She is a loyal supporter of Arsenal FC, plays for Islington Borough Ladies FC and coaches for Gunners in Islington in her spare time. Her second favourite hobby is kite surfing and she can sometimes be found chasing the wind.
