Advice: Unplug and Slow Down

In Oxford this past week, there was a conference held called TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. As you would expect, the conference was loaded with people who carried all sorts of electronic gadgets. One of the speakers was Carl Honoré, journalist and author of In Praise of Slowness.

He was there suggesting to the audience that technology was supposed to make us more efficient, but our lives are often driven by interruptions and "info-mania", and we don't take it slow anymore.

...[people] should unplug and slow down in a world that was stuck in fast-forward.

And for a wired world accustomed to having nearly unlimited information and the boundless choices of online shopping, it seems almost heretical to suggest that the infinite possibilities of the modern world leave us less satisfied instead of more.

Personal Note: In the last year, my reading list has had a fair number of books about trying to become more organized, more effective, more about trying to live well without going crazy. Unfortunately I seem to be surrounded by my fair share of people who can't slow down, can't manage their interruptions and often impose their interruptions on me (ie, cell phones), and family that wants to have the TV, radio and Computer on at once.

Across the world, people are slowing down, and they are finding that they "eat better, make love better, exercise better, work better".

And Mr Honoré told a crowd flush with technology that they needed to rediscover the off button.

I hope you'll participate, like I will be, in PC-Turnoff Week? I can't wait!!!

Hat tip to Question Technology for giving me the heads up on the article.