(film rolling)
Tiffany: I love technology.
Like everyone I'm totally addicted
but it's also consumed all of my time
where I feel like I'm constantly
responding to everyone
and not really responding
to myself in some ways.
But a few years ago I started
thinking a lot about time.
My father was dying of brain cancer
and sometimes he only
had 1 good hour a day.
It made me think about how
little of time we have.
During that time, my family and I decided
to completely unplug from
technology 1 day a week.
We call it our Technology Shabbats.
We've done it every week
for more then 3 years
and it's completely changed my life.
I'm Tiffany Shlain.
I'm a mother, filmmaker.
I founded the Webby Awards.
And this series is about
how the future doesn't start
somewhere far off in the distance.
The future starts here.
(intro music)
Let me start by saying that I'm Jewish
but I'm not religious.
But I love the rituals,
I love the rituals.
I'm culturally Jewish.
There's this organization
I'm a part of called Reboot
that was doing a national day
of unplugging several years ago.
My family and I did it and it
was such a profound experience
that we've done it every week since.
It's like our modern version
of a very old Jewish tradition
of taking 1 day off a week called Shabbat.
We still drive cars and use
electricity but for us no screens.
No TV, no cellphone or anything that
pulls us away from being together.
It's our interpretation of the
essence of Shabbat, being present.
The idea of taking a day off has
like happened all over the world
in all these different cultures.
To take breaks, pray, do rituals
or to experience time in a different way.
In the Jewish tradition, it's from
sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.
What one of my favorite
Jewish philosophers, Heschel,
calls a palace in time.
For Muslims the sacred day is Friday,
for most Christians it's Sunday
and for the never distracted Buddha, you
could just say that being enlightened,
he was having Shabbat all the time.
But with all these new
delicious technologies today,
when do we ever get the
space to take time off?
I mean, doesn't it feel like
you're always being distracted
(beeping)
or beeped at or tweeted or ...
(beeping) I mean I just feel like I'm
influenced by so many different things
(beeping) I feel like I'm in
an emotional pinball machine.
(beeping)
It just seems like a
good idea to have 1 day
where no one gets to affect
your mood except yourself
and the people that you
love right around you.
Now taking this 1 day off
from technology every week,
I feel so much more grounded and balanced.
My husband, Ken and I, try to
be as unavailable as possible
except to each other and our children.
I feel like a better
mother, wife and person.
Every week it's like a
valve of pressure releases
from the bombardment of interesting facts,
articles and tidbits I consume daily
as I travel on this info rocket
of discovery, procrastination,
productivity and then eventually overload.
Now, there's so much good
that comes from technology.
Just know that I believe that
but I also think about
what it's taking away.
Being present, being
focused in the moment.
Man in white: No radio, TV,
even the wire services are cut.
It's like the town was hanging in midair.
Tiffany: Researchers have compared
the sense of technological dependency
on the feeling that we must be
accessible and responsive at any time
to that of drugs and alcohol,
and it's all because of
this hormone dopamine,
which is related to mood,
attention and desire
whether it's for knowledge, food or sex.
It tells you that when you get
something and it feels good,
you want more of it.
When you're up late licking,
(laughs) when you're up
late but without licking.
I mean, clicking from website to website
or compulsively texting or e-mailing,
those are dopamine induced loops.
And just as we've discovered the hard way,
when we have too much
sugar or too much alcohol,
you can have too much information.
I believe we're only at the beginning
of truly understanding the effects
of too much technological
stimulation on the brain.
Voiceover: Smooth as a baby's bottom.
Man with bowtie: The
memory has been removed
like chalk erased from a blackboard.
Tiffany: As we rush into this era
of hyper connected human evolution,
we need to evolve and
adapt to be more mindful
of what we're doing online
and when we should go off.
(calm music)
Since we've unplugged on Saturdays,
our Saturdays now feel
like mini vacations.
Slow living that we savor like fine wine.
We garden, we take bike
rides, we do art projects.
We're just present with the
people right in front of us.
And it's such a beautiful day.
It's my favorite day of the week.
Now, there's one other benefit
to unplugging each week.
By sundown on Saturday night,
we can't wait to go back online.
We appreciate technology all over again.
But more importantly, the 1 day off
to rest and think about the world
makes me reinvigorated to engage in
the world with a new perspective.
Every week we remember that the most
important thing about technology
is it has an off switch.
So, do you want to try
it with us this weekend?
Think about it.
You can do all those things
you've been putting off.
Garden, call your mom, look
out the window, read a book.
(calm music)
Unplug.
(calm music)
