Garrick van Buren

“I realized that I should probably never be on the internet on my iPhone. It’s smaller and slower than my computer. But it’s very easy to just pick it up and read it, rather than a book. So I’m going to try and implement a hard rule of going to my laptop if I want to read anything online. When I’m not on the computer and I want to read, it will be a book.” – graeme blake

I spent almost all day Sunday outside. Test driving the new BBQ coffee roasting drum, brewing up a batch of sour ale, taking the littlest one for a stroller ride, then tricycle ride, then walk around the block, read 3 chapters in an actual paper book!

And today is the beginning of Screen Free Week 2012

Going screen-free a notion I’ve struggled with since the on-set of the Opt Out project. TV-like media is much more omnipresent than it was even 5 years ago. These days, TV sometimes looks like Ze Frank and sometimes looks like Angry Birds. It sometimes looks like Pandora, Facebook, and sometimes when it’s being especially sneaky – it looks a lot like email.

The history of Screen Free Week shows this struggle – while it started as TV-Turnoff week, it’s now much more inclusive of all the different places we have mindless, disposable, un-enriching, entertainment. Unfortunately, the abstraction (’screen’) makes it that much more difficult to explain than ‘Hey No TV this week’.

Just check out the half-a-dozen rules the Lasso the Moon family identified to describe their Screen free week:

• No TV all week, even after the kids are in bed
• Instead of our Weekly Movie Night we will be doing Family Game Night
• Computer and internet use is acceptable at work & school {winks}
• I am not allowed to play on my social networks, but I am able to take 15 minutes each morning to share my pre-scheduled blog posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest
• Shad is not allowed to play WordFued, but he is allowed 15 minutes of web access to check stats and make fantasy baseball trades
• The girls are allowed to yell at me if they see me using my iPhone for anything beyond making a phone call

Hell, why don’t we just say ‘No Pre-Recorded Media Week’?

I could even get behind ‘Opt-out Week’ if I thought it was right. I don’t. It’s never good to focus on the negative. The focus needs to be a positive, constructive, addictive behavior. Something that won’t make the deliciousness of screentime be even tastier after the fast.

I propose: Make Stuff Week

It has but one simple, clear goal:
Everyday create something with your hands & mind, include your entire family.

For my part – I’ll be deliberately, mindfully, writing Opt-Out.

The little guy’s getting some new teeth – so he’s been screaming and crying more than usual today. At a couple points, I picked him up, held him like the baby he still is and sang him Ze Frank’s Chillout song:

Worked faster than I could have hoped.

Ze shows the internet can create powerful emotional connections. That promise is why I spent my professional life and so much of my personal life within it. Unfortunately, the powerful emotional connections are rare. Trite, heavy-handed, emotional panderings are aplenty. That’s what we’re opting out of.