The very best thing about a concept design is that you don't have to explain how it works. It's like being a kid again, where a pair of toilet paper tubes become a telescope, or an upturned traffic cone becomes the biggest – and therefore best – ice-cream container ever.

So we won't attempt to peek inside the black box that is Hugo Eccles and Afshin Mehin's Social Bomb, a "covert device, intended to disable technologies invisibly and without consent." The idea is that you twist a timer on its top and it will somehow disable any social networking in a 30m (90 foot) radius. Think of it as a TV-Be-Gone, only for Twitter, Facebook and e-mail.

The design is part of the Slow Tech exhibition at this year's London Design Festival, curated by Wallpaper editor-at-large Henrietta Thompson. The idea behind Slow Tech is not just disconnection, but using technology in less obtrusive ways. The Social Bomb might force your friends to listen attentively to your boring anecdotes, but other designs use technology for good, not evil.

Samuel Wilkinson's Biome, for example, is a Tamagotchi-like terrarium, a real-life bottle of flowers that you nurture using a connected phone app. And Kiwi & Pom's Flip is an old-fashioned flip-board which will display incoming Tweets and appointments in clackety plastic characters.

I remain somewhat unconvinced. Downtime is important, if only to take a rest, but technology can enhance real life, too. My iPad became a useless chunk of glass and plastic on a recent holiday to Tunisia, thanks to no connectivity, anywhere. Contrast that with a previous vacation with fast 3G access: We were able to explore the nooks and crannies of towns, the pieces of a country that can never be found just by wandering the streets.

Plus, Instagram is like the best vacation photo tool ever. Just sayin'.

Slow Tech [Protein. Thanks, Henrietta!]

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