A Step-by-Step Guide to Taking a TechBreak™ from Facebook

November 16, 2011 Comments off

Never Fear – You’re Still in Control!

Here’s a challenge for you if you’re one of the estimated 750 million users worldwide who can’t get enough of the popular social media site, Facebook.

Take a mini-vacation.

That’s right. Give up Facebook for a day, a week, a weekend, a month. Do it today!

Does the very thought of disconnecting from Facebook fill you with dread? Don’t let it. Thousands of others have tried it and liked it. In fact, the alternative – being a slave to technology instead of its master – should send chills up your spine.

With Unplug and Reconnect’s new TechBreak™ Solutions, a service that offers simple strategies for those who want to step back from technology, taking a break from Facebook couldn’t be simpler. Here’s how to do it:

TechBreak From Facebook in Five Easy Steps

1. Click “Account” on the top left of your page
2. Go to “Account Settings”
3. Select the “Security” tab
4. On the bottom of the page you’ll find the button to deactivate your account –click it
5. Scroll to the bottom of the next page and click “Confirm”

Don’t worry – reactivating is also easy. Facebook won’t let you deactivate your account permanently, so when you decide your TechBreak is over, you can reactivate your account by simply signing in.

If you like it, tell your friends and try it again. Spread the word on Facebook. Share this simple TechBreak solution with your friends.

Do you want to receive more hints and suggestions from Unplug and Reconnect’s TechBreak Solutions? Simply give us your email address and we’ll be sure to keep you posted whenever we post another in our series of TechBreak Solutions!

Comments or questions are welcome.

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Breaking Up Too Easy to Do

November 15, 2011 Comments off

It was with a tinge of sadness that the Unplug & Reconnect team read about a recent survey in which more than a third of adults said they would use technology –– such as social media, email, or text messages – to end a romantic relationship.

All we can say is “ouch.”

The survey was conducted by Lab42, a market research company that focuses on social media. Lab42 surveyed 550 people over the age of 18 and found that of those surveyed, 40 percent said they would use technology to break up a romantic relationship if they ever found it necessary.

It probably should come as no surprise that many people today find ending a relationship via technology a natural thing to do. After all, many of today’s relationships begin via technology – such as text messages or emails to plan a date or Facebook “statuses” proclaiming the relationship to be real.

Still, many would argue that a breakup via technology is cowardly, heartless and less than classy. And while we’re not here to pass similar judgment, we would like to say that there’s a time and a place when real human contact trumps technology. Delivering bad news, especially news that is likely to hurt another person, is usually one of those times.

 

 

Magazine: How We Unplugged

October 27, 2011 Comments off

Hot off the newsstands this week is the latest issue of Mishpacha Jewish Family Weekly “Family First” section, with a feature story describing the experiences of some of those who chose to Unplug & Reconnect on Sunday, Oct. 2, the “Day to Disconnect.”

The publication, which reaches more than 250,000 readers, reports that tens of thousands of hours were devoted to unplugging from technology on this one day, with participants spending that time reconnecting with the people and events that are meaningful to them. The initiative was conceived by Ohr Naava, a Brooklyn-based women’s organization, and sponsored by Ohr Naava and Unplug and Reconnect.

“From the start, there was a natural synergy between Unplug and Reconnect and . . . Day to Disconnect,” says Dr. Joseph Geliebter, founder of Unplug and Reconnect. “Unplug and Reconnect brought a greater emphasis on ‘reconnecting’ to the disconnect mission.”

While event organizers anticipated that businesspeople and teens would be the among the most “wired,” of event participants, they were surprised to learn that oftentimes it was young mothers who confessed to being the most plugged in, according to Mishpacha. “Many of them found cutting the tie to their cell phones surprisingly more liberating than constraining,” Mishpacha reported. One mother told the magazine, “I never thought of myself as too obsessed with technology, but evidently I’ve been stuck pretty deep. I was so excited to spend three hours with myself and my family and found myself happier those few hours and definitely more patient with those around me.”

Overwhelmingly, people pledged hours away from technology in pursuit of family activities – whether it was spending time with a spouse, children, grandchildren, parents, or grandparents. Poignantly, one father reported, “I played with my two-and-a-half-year-old son and for the first time ever, I gave him my full attention!”

Addicted to Technology

Many participants in Day to Disconnect recognized that they might be addicted to technology. One young man told Mishpacha that after disconnecting for four hours, he realized that his cell phone had become like “a drug, an addiction, one I can’t stop. Whenever I’m interacting with other people and my pocket vibrates, even if I don’t look into my pocket, I’m far more curious what e-mail, text, or [BlackBerry message] I just received than what the person I’m talking to is saying.”

Indeed, we’re so enamored of our cell phones that many of us even sleep with these devices under our pillows, the magazine noted. One young woman opted to disconnect from her cell phone at midnight, moving her cell phone far from her bedroom. “. . . When I woke up . . . I felt refreshed and invigorated, since I actually slept a full eight hours. No disturbing texts stealing my REM sleep, no vibrating phone beneath my pillow, just a deep revitalizing sleep,” she reported.

Still disconnected later that day, this same young woman discovered what organizers of Day to Disconnect had hoped participants would realize: “I found it’s possible to communicate without my communication devices,” she said.

 

 

 

 

Yes, Let’s Do Lunch

October 25, 2011 Comments off

 

Are you guilty? Are you one of the growing number of employees who lunch at their desks or go without if you’ve forgotten to brown-bag it?

 

According to a recent study by Aviva Health, Health of the Workplace, you’re not alone. Thirty percent of employees surveyed said they were likely to skip a regular lunch break. Aviva found that almost 15 percent of employees skipped meals entirely because of stressful workloads, while 25 percent said their decision to take lunch or not depended on whether they had the time.

 

Many  of us would have fallen in with the 30th percentile, those who skipped lunch in order to complete their work. If you’re like these workers, you rarely take yourself away from your desk for a leisurely meal break. You probably feel virtuous about it, too, since skipping lunch seems to have become part of the new American work ethic. But skipping lunch isn’t good for you– and it isn’t good for your employer either.

From a health perspective, it’s important to refuel with a nutritious lunch, especially in the midst of a stressful day. When we’re stressed, we get an adrenaline rush that may mask our hunger pangs, but our body still craves food. Without midday nourishment, our body experiences dropping glucose levels. Glucose is something our cells (including those all-important gray cells) need in order to function properly. Eventually, skipping lunch will slow one’s metabolism, which may explain why we find ourselves stifling yawns at three in the afternoon.

But more importantly, taking a lunch break forces us to Unplug and Reconnect. The very act of getting up and walking away from our computers helps us recharge our batteries. Sometimes, when we give ourselves a brief respite, we find that our problem-solving skills grow stronger, that our creative juices start to flow again. A workload that seemed insurmountable before lunch seems more manageable once we’ve walked away from it for a while.

If you’re an employer who hopes for an energized workforce, encourage your employees to take lunch. If you’re an employee who’s tempted to skip lunch, step back and repeat: Let’s do lunch.

 

Cute ‘iPad Baby’ Provokes Thoughts about Reading

October 18, 2011 Comments off

In a video making the rounds on YouTube, a toddler is seen trying – and failing – to manipulate the pages of a magazine as if it were an iPad instead of a stack of printed pages. Frustrated in her attempts to make images move, she pushes the magazine away.

Adorable, right?

Well, maybe not. How valuable can it be for a baby to learn that mom’s iPad, with its flashy moving images, is way cooler than the printed page? If children learn to read by being read to by their parents and by mimicking parental behavior – which they do – what is this child learning?

Reading experts say even the youngest of babies benefit when their parents or other adults read to them aloud from a book. By being read to, a baby learns about communication and about important concepts such as numbers and letters, and colors and shapes. Reading also builds critical listening, memory, and vocabulary skills. Indeed, the very act of participating in reading at an early age is what creates lifelong readers. When parent and baby share a book, the baby is usually encouraged to join in the activity by turning pages and following text from left to right. This is behavior that will serve them well when they begin to read on their own.

So yes, it’s cute to see the iPad baby grapple with the pages of a magazine. But it would be really neat if the next frame of the YouTube video showed a parent picking up the magazine the child has pushed away to show her how cool words and pictures can be – even when they only move in our imaginations.

 

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