Most of us couldn't, given the inability to function in a modern workplace without being connected for at least part of the day. But that's the beauty of being a student with little official demands on one's time and the freedom to experiment with alternative lifestyles. Jake Reilly, a 24-year-old graduate student in Chicago, decided to go offline for 90 days, starting in October. He lived to tell the tale to a Yahoo contributor and on YouTube:
Reilly suspended his service with Verizon, deactivated his Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts, put an "away until January 1, 2012" auto-reply on his email, and generally did his best to stay away from communication devices (except he did get a landline per his mother's insistence). He called it the "Going Amish Project," though as far as I can tell, he refrained from purchasing a buggy or growing his beard out. Alternatively, he could have called it "The Nostalgia Project" or the "If I Lived 30 Years Ago Project." Though part of the challenge is that everyone around him was still connected.
Major downsides: Having to learn "how to play again." Cut off from social information flows. Benefits: more free time, improved penmanship, more romantic gestures, less Facebook-inspired jealousy rages.
"This whole thing kind of, I think, helped [my long-term girlfriend and I] get back together because whenever we were together there was no pressure. It was, OK, we're just going to enjoy each other right now, because I don't know when I'm going to see you again. There was no drunken text messaging and jealousy from Facebook. It was just her and I.
So we started seeing each other again, and I did a lot of cheesy stuff like writing a big chalk message on the street in front of her office building and sending her a cookie with a message written in frosting and stuff like that.
via Jake Reilly's 'Amish Project:' 90 Days Without a Cell Phone, Email and SocialMedia - Yahoo! News.
While most of us are unable to take ourselves off the network for three months (and might shudder at the thought), it isn't a crazy idea to indulge in email/smartphone sabbaticals a couple of times per year. I usually take at least two weeks of vacation each year during which I turn my smartphone off and stay away from computers. I don't consider it 'going Amish;' I just think of it as turning off to recharge. Unfathomable to you? Don't worry! Thanks to danah boyd, there's an instruction manual.
