Leave your phone at home.

March 6–7 were the ‘National Day of Unplugging.’ According to the organizers:

We increasingly miss out on the important moments of our lives as we pass the hours with our noses buried in our iPhones, chronicling our every move through Facebook and Twitter and shielding ourselves from the outside world…

Friday night, the group Digital Detox held an Unplug SF party. At this party, you’ve got to check your tech at the door — no phones allowed. Other rules include: no networking, no real names, no talk about work.

There were: arts and crafts, massage, a tea lounge, live music, face painting, board games, puzzles, typewriters, a cash bar.

More and more, I feel there’s something special about events and experiences that aren’t over-documented. It’s something I’ve written about before. Ironically, I went to Unplug SF as a journalist, to document it, and study the phenomenon.

What did I find? Overall, it seemed ditching the phones created a safe space where people felt a little more open and a little less self-conscious.

Observations:

Grown-up people still want to draw, paint and do arts and crafts.

People were more focused on doing the silly (and fun) activities, not just documenting themselves doing the activities. (For example, friends might spend 15 minutes composing a story on a typewriter, not just snapping the photo op and moving on.)

There was great energy at this event. It’s hard to put my finger on it. Part of it was undoubtably the live music. Midtown Social rocked hard, putting on a funky, Stop Making Sense-esque dance party.

ENERGY: Let’s assume that at a party, we each have 100 units of energy to give. Let’s say each of us puts some of that energy into our phone — by texting, take selfies, Snapchat, Insta, etc — let’s call that amount of energy E.

Take E x (EACH PERSON AT THE PARTY) = EL (total Energy Lost)

That’s a lot of lost energy, when you add it all up. At a phone-free party, all that energy is saved, spread out, and multiplied.