Calling a technology timeout
Buzz of cellphones, Internet, other gadgets drives some to pull plug
NEEDHAM - With cellphones strapped to their hips and the Internet in their pocket, they hustle down suburban streets, always racing off to somewhere. One child's swim lessons, another's choir practice. There's Hebrew school to attend, and science projects to finish, and, finally, from many suburban families, there is screaming. People want to be unplugged, be unscheduled.
And so, in recent years, town officials have started giving people that opportunity. Monthlong calendars have been created in Needham, Newton, Belmont, and Bedford suggesting daily activities that don't include watching television or instant-messaging. Nights have been set aside in these towns - as well as in Northborough and Southborough - where meetings and school homework are forbidden, freeing families up to spend a quiet evening together. And in Needham - where the local "unplugged" or "unscheduled" movement began - a few brave souls decided to do something radical last Friday.
No e-mail. All day.
"When you combine the number of hours devoted to television and being online, it could be up to 10 hours a day or more," said Jon Mattleman, director of the Needham Youth Commission, who planned "Needham Unplugged." "So I really want people to think about it. If you're doing anything for 10 hours a day, what does that mean for your life?"
Researchers studying the impact of technology on our lives say it's a valid question, given the ways that digital gadgetry divide us as well as connect us. But in a world gone wired, calls for technological temperance often fall on unwilling ears - even when people say they want to go unplugged. And carving out family time for board games on the living room floor?
"That's great," said Ann Reynolds, a Belmont mother of three children, ages 13, 12, and 7. "But I've got hockey practice. I've got to be somewhere at seven o'clock. You have all these other things."
Many people, like Reynolds, say they are looking forward to their one night of no homework and no town meetings this month. But between other obligations, many families hardly have time to change much else. Some folks in Northborough were apparently too busy to even learn about their town's "unscheduled" night last week; there were four town meetings that evening. And Mattleman's "no e-mail" day didn't exactly excite Needham residents - or even Mattleman's own employees.
"They were bewildered," Mattleman said. "Seriously, I think they thought, 'That's a great idea. But how are we going to survive here?' "
What concerns Mattleman and others is the way that technology - and specifically the Internet - has infiltrated our lives. And recent studies by the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society indicate that there is reason to worry.
The Stanford research showed that people who didn't use the Internet during a random six-hour window on a given day were likely to spend, on average, almost twice as much time with family during those hours than those who spent an hour or more online.
Kristen Backor, the institute's head research assistant, said this shows that while people may be connecting with others on the internet they are disconnecting with loved ones to do so. That, Backor said, is changing how people relate within the home.
And this is not a trivial change, said Dr. Edward Hallowell, a Sudbury psychiatrist, former Harvard Medical School faculty member and the author of the book "CrazyBusy."
"What we're seeing, we've never seen in human history before," Hallowell said. "It's just the extraordinary availability and magnetism of electronic communication devices, whether it's cellphones or Blackberries or the Internet. People tend to - without knowing it or meaning to - spend a lot of time doing what I call screen sucking."
Feeling the need to start reconnecting on a personal level, Mattleman, 51, launched the first "Needham Unplugged" month in March 2002. The no-homework night was added a year later, and other towns soon began to follow Needham's lead, hoping to give families a reason to slow down for at least one night.
"Every day you come home and the kids are scheduled to the max: the soccer, baseball, basketball, CCD," said Terry Giannetto, a mother of three who organized "Northborough UNscheduled" this year. "And it really is a chance for families to take a breather, reconnect. For that one day, we have nothing to do except hang out with each other."
In Needham, where there will be no homework and no town meetings this Thursday, many people are looking forward to a break. Jerry Wasserman, the chairman of the town's Board of Selectmen, said he will spend the night with his wife of 27 years. Susan and Roger Patkin will spend the evening with their three children. And Laurie Spitz said her kids, especially 7-year-old Kayla, have been talking about that night for days.
"We've put some time into planning the night and we're looking forward to it," Spitz said. "They're really excited about it because we usually don't have time to sit down and play."
This week, Spitz said, that will change. But the simplicity will be short-lived for the Spitz family. And others in Needham admit they're having trouble changing very much at all this month.
In Cathy Lunetta's home, it's been hard to stop watching television because, she said, they just got cable TV for the first time. Wasserman admitted that giving up e-mail - even for one day - is pretty much impossible. And Leslie Nelken, a mother of two, said she is beyond the point of unplugging, even though her family, and especially her 16-year-old son, have grown way too reliant on technology.
"Oh, my God. Way too much," Nelken said. "I can't disengage him. He's either on iTunes, or Face-booking, or video games."
Unable to end this digital dance, Nelken recently decided to learn a few steps of her own. The 53-year-old woman got online and signed up for her own account at Facebook.com, an online social network popular with the kids. She then sent a message to her son, asking to join his network.
"I had to think about it," admitted Michael Quinlan, Nelken's son and a junior at Needham High School. But ultimately, and a little reluctantly, the son agreed to let his mother in.
Keith O'Brien can be reached at kobrien@globe.com. 