Now I'm the sort of person who fulminates because some people are advertising Christmas events and it isn't even Halloween yet, but let me go one step further and suggest something for Lent. I've tried it out on a few others and it has frightened the life out of them, but it was borne out of listening to late night radio last night and some of my experiences over the summer of technology going bad and leaving me feeling decidedly uneasy about my dependence upon it.
So here it is: A Lo-Tec Lent. 40 days without digital technology.
No computers.
No mobiles.
No digital TV.
No internet.
No PDA.
No Satnav.
No pagers.
No DECT phones.
No ipod/mp3 player
No digital radio
No flights
If particularly daring one could add to that no cars with electronic management systems, no dishwashers, no electronic keyboards etc.
I propose it for Lent because it will probably take from now to then to sort out how I might manage without these electronic aids to existence. And the question is... would it be appropriate to manually write up a "blog" about the experience for someone else to post, or would that be defeating the object?
Any takers for this experiment into sacrificial simplicity?
Comments
No computers.
No mobiles.
Need these for work - could maybe manage no non-work-related texts.
No digital TV.
Don't have a TV, so no problem.
No internet.
Need it for work, otherwise... maybe.
No PDA.
No Satnav.
No pagers.
No DECT phones.
Don't know what a DECT phone is, but don't own any of the others, so no problem.
No ipod/mp3 player
Probably could manage this (assume that playing them via the computer is out as well).
No digital radio
Don't have this.
No flights
Probably fine - not a big traveller.
Would definitely be interesting to follow a blog on this - I blogged on the Carbon Fast last year and people were interested...
I'll think about it.
[curls up into fetal position]
Ironically might have a shared blogspace manned by someone not taking part where we could sign up, and temporarily signpost our own blogs/emails to... and submit our experiences periodically via paper and realmail.
Keep spreading the idea, see if we can get any kind of momentum on it...