Ditch Your Device for a day on UK Unplugging Day 26th June 2022

07 Jun Ditch Your Device for a day on UK Unplugging Day 26th June 2022

UK Unplugging Day will take place on Sunday 26th of June this year and we are challenging you to join in! The day encourages everyone to ditch their devices for a day to take part in a universal 24-hour digital detox.

The last couple of years have seen a massive change in our relationships with digital devices: from students at university taking their entire degrees through screens, to parents working from home whilst home-schooling and global interconnection increasing even more. These changes have allowed us to continue participating in social, educational, and political spaces more accessibly, whilst maintaining our safety. However, it has also had the effect of reducing our in-person interaction with 30+% of adults voluntarily reducing their interaction with others throughout the pandemic. This has had a negative impact on the collective mental health of the world. So, however, difficult we may find it, taking a step back from tech this UK Unplugging Day will provide a much needed break.

Time to Log Off regularly emphasises the importance of maintaining our off-screen relationships. Despite tech providing us with the opportunity to build quantitively greater connections, these do not translate qualitatively in the real world. It is in-person that we have our most valuable interactions.

At Time to Log Off we are advocates of regular digital detox in order to achieve a healthy tech-life balance. But we know how daunting the than be, especially in the world we live in: for some it may even seem impossible to put our phones down for an hour, let alone one day a week.

Therefore, UK Unplugging Day can be a great place to start: to let people know that you are going to be off-grid and committing only one day, a Sunday, to finally taking that break. UK Unplugging Day is always the 4th Sunday of June for that reason: to those working and studying to participate as much as possible.

Whilst we would always encourage you to log off for the whole day, anything is better than nothing so if you have to allot yourself times throughout the day to checkin and give yourself the rest of the day off that could work too- it is the first step which makes the most difference!

With all of these accommodations therefore there is very little excuse for anyone to not get involved. You could even get friends and family involved to help you pass the time and give them the gift of logging off too. One day without these will help you rediscover off-screen activities that you used to love, and perhaps some new ones. Don’t underestimate the rejuvenating power of being away from your tech for a while. We will be spending the day out in nature, getting back into colouring and maybe some puzzles too!

By joining in on Sunday 26th, you’ll be joining a community of people who realise the value of maintaining and growing their off-line interests, relationships and communities. Enjoy it!