Disconnect

Been thinking a lot about “disconnecting”. That sounds rather unpleasant. I don’t mean it that way. Rather, “disconnecting” from our current plugged-in world, and what kind of ideas that would produce. But let’s back up a bit.

I finally signed up for Twitter. Call it my “stepping stone” for finally embracing Facebook. I’m a rather private person by nature, so I’m not hugely keen on the idea of social networks. I know, I know, eyes are rolling. But that’s besides the point. One I started checking my Twitter account more and more frequently throughout the day, I also started wondering about us in general.

For various reasons - marketing, staying in touch, etc. - we’re nearly forced into staying up to date. Twitter. Facebook. Hell, even all of our interactions through iPhones and Blackberries. It’s just the norm.

But what would happen? Seriously. What would happen if we decided to simply unplug from our digital world for a month? A year? I won’t go as far as saying “we won’t even use computers!”, but you get my point. Ever wondered what would happen creatively, culturally, what-have-you, if we unplugged?

What if these technologies, systems, and social networks still existed, but we decided to step outside of all of those frameworks. Instead, we look at them from the outside in?

I sometimes get this nagging feeling that we could create so much more if we weren’t so neck-deep into it all. We’re always plugged in. Regardless of our deadlines, we always check our Facebook status, or Twitter feed, or even email. What if we removed all of the “connections”?

Look at blog trends within the designers’ circle. We all post about the same thing on the same day. We all soak in the latest look, font, and idea. We move along the current. It makes it hard to have an original idea when we’re always looking all day long.

What would each of us create, just by looking out of the window for a day?