But where are we going with all this?

The ‘Digital Sabbath’ has provided ample food for thought.

To explore this issue with depth and clarity, there are four main avenues of inquiry that really seem to stand out:

Personal experiences

• Information from interviews with people who have designated themselves ‘digital sabbaths’ or have gone on ‘detoxes'

• Tapping into social media – e.g. asking over Facebook, creating a Twitter hash tag for people to share their experiences – such as Stuart Hughes, a producer for the BBC, who shared his own detox on the website and via Twitter

• Researching already existing hash tags for things like the Adbusters ‘Digital Detox’ campaign (can’t find anything – should we make our own?) and the Huffington Post’s Unplug and Recharge Challenge

•  Demographics – survey of ‘detoxers’ to find out who feels the need to switch off, why, to what extent and how they do so

Health professionals

• Psychologists and medical academics in particular, looking at the potential benefits of switching off

• Also exploring the disadvantages of switching off – e.g. increased stress when re-entering the digital world (more work to do, backlog of emails to reply to) and psychological issues as detoxers come to realise the inevitability of living in a world driven by internet media and technology.

• This article from The Daily Beast provides a fascinating alternative look at the dangers of a digital detox, while this feature from Wellbeing Australia gives an Australian perspective on the health aspects of intensive media use.

Physical controls / facilitators

• Retreats and holidays, such as the ones mentioned in the Caribbean and American wilderness; potentially the Australian equivalent, meditation retreats in the Blue Mountains, South Coast and North Coast (NSW)

• Apps, advice blogs etc. that (somewhat ironically) enable move offline

• Campaigns (solidarity) – e.g. National Day of Unplugging 2012, asking people to take (ironically) an online ‘pledge’; The Sabbath Manifesto

• Question: why do people feel a lack of control when it comes to online media and technology? – so much so that they need to have it physically removed from them by external forces? Various surveys have been conducted recently showing many people’s utter addiction to technology

Technology companies

• How do the producers of online media feel when their products – perhaps conceived optimistically as opening new avenues of communication or making lives easier – are demonised (by consumers and popular press)?

• Yet, as the New York Times article in my previous post explores, those who work at these companies are themselves engaging in ways of switching off, and considering the ethical responsibilities they have in producing seemingly ‘addictive’ products.