National Day Of Unplugging: Mother Says Off Switch Is Technology’s Best Feature

In honor of the newly unveiled National Day of Unplugging, a mother claims that the power switch is technology’s best feature.

Tiffany Shlain, filmmaker and founder of the Webby Awards, continued a new family tradition Friday night. Dinner was almost ready, and she removed the iPads from her daughters’ laps. Tiffany’s husband was the last holdout, but he eventually powered down his mobile device after one last email. Candles were lit, and the family went without technology for the night.

For the following 24 hours, Tiffany Shlain’s family knew nobody would be able to reach them without using the land-line telephone, but Mom had it all planned out. According to the Huffington Post, they have done the same thing every week for three years.

Tiffany Shlain first became aware of the technology issue in 2008 when her father Leonard has been diagnosed with brain cancer. For an hour she just wanted to spend quality time with him, and that meant giving him her undivided attention. Tiffany turned off her phone, and her family has been doing that every Friday night ever since.

Albert Einstein once said that time is relative to your state of motion, and it is made evident in the fact that we get caught up on Facebook, emails, texting and the like, and then we wonder how it’s 5pm already.

National Day of Unplugging began this year on March 1, as people across the US have followed Tiffany Shlain’s lead in turning off their mobile devices, computers and whatnot for a day. The movement began as a way to address the issue of technology addiction.

Tiffany Shlain and her family have seen their Saturdays as a kind of vacation, where time slows to the preindustrial level and they just enjoy the things that social media normally steals time away from. She admits there have been times on the job that she had faked a trip to the restroom just to check her email on her phone.

National Day of Unplugging is an opportunity to leave the shackles of networking behind for a day and just enjoy life.

How do you feel about Tiffany Shlain saying that the power switch is technology’s best feature?

NATIONAL DAY OF UNPLUGGING is almost over. I didn’t know! We need designated breaks rom technology now! twitter.com/peeweeherman/s…

— Pee-wee Herman (@peeweeherman) March 2, 2013