Disconnect

San Francisco artist Jessica Tully designed a cell phone “sleeping bag” for Reboot to help people resist the temptation of the glow from phones and other technology. SAN FRANCISCO — You have 73 new e-mails. Someone just posted on your wall. You have been tagged in a photo. You turn on your cell phone: “4 missed calls”, “2 new voice mails” … and a long string of unread text messages.

Buzz. Ring. Tweet. Tweet. IM. Tweet. Tweet.

The avalanche of connectivity is constant in today’s world. Our eyes and ears are constantly stimulated with smartphones and computer notebooks that make it nearly impossible to feel unplugged from the outside world. This nonstop exchange of information creates the expectation that we are available 24/7 to reply to a text message, take a call or write an e-mail.

One Jewish initiative is seeking to change this behavior — at least for one day per week.

Known as the Sabbath Manifesto, the new initiative challenges both Jews and non-Jews to reconnect to a slower life by using the weekly day of rest to disconnect from the phones and computers — even television screens— that drown us in data and stimuli.

It’s a tech timeout, if you will.

“There’s clearly a social problem when we’re interacting more with digital interfaces than with our fellow human beings,” said former San Francisco resident Dan Rollman, creator of the Sabbath Manifesto. “Rich, engaging conversations are harder to come by than they were a few years ago. As we voyage deeper into the digital world, our attention spans are silently evaporating.”

Rollman, who now lives in New York, came up with the Sabbath Manifesto concept in 2008 at a retreat for Reboot, a national nonprofit that brings together creative Jews twice a year. The gatherings give the Rebooters the time and space to brainstorm ways to reinvent Jewish rituals and ideas, and to plan largescale endeavors or programs for their local communities.

A brainstorming session led to 10 simple core principles of the manifesto:
• Avoid technology.
• Connect with loved ones.
• Nurture your health.
• Get outside.
• Avoid commerce.
• Light candles.
• Drink wine.
• Eat bread.
• Find silence.
• Give back.

The 10 principles have been debated, discussed and dissected online. For example, does unplugging from technology conflict with the decree to connect to loved ones? How can people find silence if they live in the heart of a city? What’s so special about drinking wine and eating bread when we can do that any other day of the week?

“Though the manifesto incorporates certain Jewish traditions, we made a conscious effort to make this project secular,” Rollman said. “We believe that everyone can benefit from a respite from the relentless technology.”

Reboot, based in New York but with additional staff on the West Coast, formally launched the Sabbath Manifesto with the National Day of Unplugging, which began at sundown Friday, March 19 and concluded at sundown March 20. It encouraged people to take on the first principle of the manifesto: Avoid technology.

“It was an odd feeling, like you’re missing a limb, to reach for the BlackBerry and not have it there,” said Josh Becker, a Rebooter and a first-time political candidate with his eye on the California state Assembly.

Becker, of Menlo Park, unplugged even though it was the day Democratic Party delegates were deciding whether to endorse him for the state assembly district primary.

Becker owns a BlackBerry (his seventh) and an iPhone. He has 110,000 messages in his e-mail inbox, and while he does regularly check his gmail on Shabbat, he also attends Congregation Beth Am’s weekly Shabbaton in Los Altos Hills. Still, he has often yearned to take his Sabbath observance to the next level.

“For years I’ve thought about keeping a full Shabbat but never did it,” Becker said. “So [the National Day of Unplugging] really captured my imagination and served as a rallying cry for me.”

He lit candles, drank wine, went outside with his family and enjoyed the quality, uninterrupted time with his wife and two children.

To continue the momentum from its National Day of Unplugging, Reboot has devised the ongoing Unplug Challenge. The challenge recommends that people unplug once a week, or even just once a month — whatever feels reasonable for them — and experience a 24-hour period without the hum of technology, be it sundown to sundown or even on a Sunday.

A few “celebrity” Rebooters have taken the Unplug Challenge.

Humor columnist Joel Stein wrote about his experience in Time magazine. After extending the experiment to two days, Stein wrote: “I did learn that I’d rather hang out with my wife and son than find out every time someone retweets me. I don’t want to feel the need to respond to everything as soon as I can. But I do, of course, need everyone else to respond to my e-mails, texts and calls right away.”

Actor Josh Radnor of How I Met Your Mother writing on the Huffington Post website was similarly happy being unplugged. “It really was a very nice 24 hours — I saw some friends, I sang in my car with the windows down, I rehearsed a wonderful play with some talented folks, I saw my niece and nephew and had a really nice dinner with my sister. Nothing flashy. But it felt real, slower. I could almost hear myself breathing. I’m pretty sure I was alive.”

The Sabbath Manifesto is one of several tech-free initiatives popping up these days.

The owner of Actual Cafe in Oakland turns off the Wi-Fi every weekend, an experiment intended to revive the kind of social atmosphere that existed before wireless connections and laptops.

Intel in Santa Clara established “Zero Email Fridays” in 2007. The policy doesn’t entirely ban e-mail on Fridays, but does encourage employees to meet face to face that day of the week.

AdBusters Magazine recently sponsored Digital Detox Week as a way to encourage its tech-savvy readers (and others) to cut back on digital stimulation and take time to reflect.

There also has been some renewed focus on slowing down in the wake of the recently published The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time. Author Judith Shulevitz not only looks at the Christian and Jewish Sabbath historically, but also reflects on her own struggles with Shabbat.

“In this tech-drenched society, the notion of the Sabbath, or even of a day of rest, has been lost,” said Tanya Schevitz, a former San Francisco Chronicle reporter who is Reboot’s San Francisco program coordinator.

At the same time, technology is playing a key role in helping the Sabbath Manifesto’s Unplug Challenge gain traction as more people find out about the initiative online.

“We recognize irony,” Schevitz said, “that we’ve used technology to shut down technology because it was the best way to get the word out.”