The Punkt. Digital Detox Challenge: Summer 2016

Punkt. Journal

A black Punkt. phone sits on a white desk beside a roll of tape, a black pen, and a signed art print featuring a colorful, stylized forest scene in yellow, blue, and white with a character riding a bicycle through the trees.

The first Punkt. Digital Detox Challenge, Summer 2016

In July 2016 we ran the first Punkt. Digital Detox Challenge. And what exactly was the Challenge? Simply to live without a smartphone for minimum of 48 hours. Punkt. selected 40 participants (journalists and members of the public) from a total of over a thousand applicants and issued them with an MP01 to use during their two days of reconnection. The outcome? Some found it easier than others, with a few actually quitting mid-way through. From Down Under to The Dolomites, participant reports cover just about everything from family reunions to the realities of going digital cold turkey. People's favourite pastimes without internet? Photography, reading books, talking, staring into space and playing with their children.

What satisfying, simple pleasures life has to offer!

During my digital detox I slept better. Without something to look at at night, I relaxed and went to sleep. I spent my waking moments interacting with my daughter, rather than flicking through...

Constant Connection is Meaning-less

Using the MP01 is like suddenly being whisked from a polluted, hyper-stimulated over-branded Oxford Street to the side of a deep blue lake surrounded by distant mountains and drawing in a long brea...

Going Back To Basics With Jasper Morrison’s – Punkt MP01 Phone

As you’ve probably gathered by now, I’m big into trying different experiences that feed my desire to simplify my life from electronics, helping me to seek out the right balance of my...

I love the MP01, but I can't give up my iPhone

I did not manage the challenge. Effectively even when I am on holiday and refuse social media, I still use the phone as a camera and GPS to navigate through unknown places and Uber to take me home....

Life’s Too Short To Spend it Online

A few days before starting the Challenge, my wife Alex and I deactivated our personal Facebook accounts, leaving only our company Oiffy and latest project pages (White King Film, Ricky Rouse Hasa...

Escaping the Matrix

What was I doing? My life was in my iPhone - my friends, my camera, Instagram, Twitter and the weather (I'm British, this is essential) and I was about to turn it off for entire weekend for a...

The right tool for the right job

Prior to being selected to take part in the Punkt. MP01 Digital Detox Challenge, giving up my smartphone and restoring some type of work/life balance was something I had been pondering for some tim...

48 hours, sans smartphone.

I noticed it within minutes. I would check and there it wasn't. I was free! I'm talking about the notification bar spanning the top of every smartphone, and after only a few minutes with the...

It is liberating, no question

The MP01 is a conversation starter like no other My initial thought when I took the phone out for the first time was that people would adopt an attitude of “Why are you...

Comfortably disconnected

So – I was selected to undertake a 48hr “digital detox” by Punkt., with only the delectably slight MP01 handset to keep me company. I’d admired the handset for a while;...

Making More Room for Thought

As one of the first smartphone users years ago, I feel disappointed about the direction we are heading. Smartphones have taken over our lives, instead of actually improving them. I started my...

Taking control of tech

48 hour digital detox challenge was great. So great, in fact, that now it turned into a 72 hour digital detox challenge. And counting. I am on my holiday now and being able to pack light, leave...