[mcnemesis]

Good points there. In my country (Uganda), we often have power outages, and during those periods i get to leave my computer alone (most of the other times am coding or reading something).

Surprisingly, at first i used to feel depressed during such times, but after a while i realized those were good times to sit down or move about and think with pen and paper about some cool ideas.

A lot of my personal projects (I write prose and poetry, and do hobbyist software projects) have been sparked off by reflections or non-tech explorations done away from the computer. Surely, i recommend that every one ought to take some time off tech, especially those whose survival depends on creativity and tech - like developers.

I long quit from Facebook, don't use any social-nets, depending mostly on good old forums, irc and real-time meet-ups. Too much dependence on tech can probably dwarf the intellect in my opinion, nature is still a good source of pure advancement.

[veb]

I'm in a completely different country (New Zealand) and I do the same as you. I like to get off the computer, leave my cell-phone inside, and go cut lawns or do landscaping outside. To me, that feels like the best kind of brain-food you can get. If not, all the ideas I get come to me when I'm off the computer. They're always jotted down in a wee notebook.

Technology is great... in moderation