Sunday, October 2nd has been declared a Day To Disconnect from technology
and to re-connect in-person with family and friends.
Rabbi Zechariah Wallerstein, the founder and director of Ohr Naava, an educational institution in Brooklyn, NY, has launched a worldwide campaign to encourage people to switch off their mobile devices for at least one hour on Sunday, October 2nd, and to connect with people face-to-face instead.
“When you’re connected to technology, you’re disconnected from everything else”, Rabbi Wallerstein stated. “Constantly checking our phones when we’re with others reduces the quality of our relationships with the people we care about most. By turning off our phones for just one hour during the busy-ness of our days, we condition ourselves to be in control of our technology, and not vice versa”
As part of the campaign, Ohr Naava has created a website, daytodisconnect.com, to enable people to register to disconnect for their hours, and to encourage others to join the campaign. The campaign has already received worldwide attention.
Ohr Naava hopes to accumulate 1 million hours of disconnect-time worldwide – which means a million hours of meaningful reconnection – on October 2nd, the first Sunday of the Jewish New Year, which is also the Fast of Gedalia.
“Technology”, explained Charlie Harary, spokesman for DaytoDisconnect, “isn’t what disconnects us from our loved ones; it’s the overuse of technology. If, during a regular day we can shut off our technology for an hour, it may change our ‘addiction’ to our phones and computers during the rest of the week and year.”
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