Is your iPhone a permanent part of your anatomy? Glued to your hand, or your hip? Can’t walk by a computer without checking the latest Facebook feed? Have to see if your “Words with Friends” pals have responded? Need your dose of “Angry Birds”? We’ve become slaves to our technology–phones, email, iPads. A psychology journal even exists to study the multitude of effects this ever-present technology has on our behavior and well-being. Benefits abound; last night my critique group could Skype with one member who is on sabbatical in England for a year. Very fun stuff.

But if you’re tired of the energy drain of this instant connecting–always having to keep up with the email or keep the cell phone immediately accessible–consider joining Day to Disconnect this weekend. We worry that we might miss something. The kids or sitter might need us. Catastrophe might befall someone. We might fail to nab a great Groupon deal or a must-have-it freebie on Freecycle. Oh well.

Sounds like the kind of all-or-nothing, black and white thinking that I love to diffuse. You can take an hour–or a day–off from your technology, just to test out the theory that the sky might fall. Turn it off. Leave it alone. Connect with a loved one, or nature, or an old-fashioned book. See if the frantic, always-on pace that makes our nervous systems hover about ten degrees below panic mode relents, just a tiny bit.

I dare me. I dare you. We deserve it.