Tech Timeout Issues Challenge for Tech Gadget Break

By Cynthia Herbert :: 10:53 PM

In alignment with the 2013 National Day of Unplugging on March 1, the recently launched Tech Timeout is challenging people to take a break from their tech-toys for one hour each day, year round, in an effort to reconnect with loved ones and analog life throughout the year.

TechTimeout.com and the Tech Timeout Facebook page are working to make it easier by providing the tools needed to help participants be successful.

The site provides a list of more than 50 things to do without technology and offers downloadable Tech Timeout pledge forms to be printed and displayed in homes as a daily reminder to refresh and reconnect.

The idea is the brainchild of Foresters, an international life insurance provider, and BVK Creative Director, Gary Mueller , who came up with the concept while observing the behavior of other families around a pool during a recent family vacation in Florida.

“It was crazy,” recalls Mueller. “I am sitting there watching a dozen families who should be laughing, swimming and interacting with each other in the pool and instead you have dads on their laptops working, moms on iPads and kids either texting or playing games on their phones. That’s when the idea of launching Tech Timeout was born.”

Of course, the irony of using social media tools like Facebook to promote an effort to get people to take a break from them is not lost on Mueller.

“Unfortunately, that’s just the reality of the world we live in,” explains Mueller. “I look at it as simply fighting fire with fire.”
Moving forward in 2013, the Tech Timeout Facebook page will function as a gathering place for people taking “timeouts” to share their tech-free success stories and struggles, as well as for a source for news, resources and reference to inspire tech-free ideas.

The fourth annual National Unplugging Day is scheduled to take place from sundown to sundown spanning March 1-2.

[More info: Tech Timeout]