Offline Club’s first global event on Sunday will begin with tips on how to be phone-free for 24 hours every week Haunted by a pile of unread books? Or taunted by climbing equipment lurking in the cupboard? If you are one of the UK adults who spends on average five hours a day looking at screens rather than participating in pastimes, perhaps it’s time to join the offline revolution. Instead of spending those five hours staring at a screen, you could read about 300 pages of a book, climb Mount Snowdon, or – depending on your pace – run a marathon. Some are even choosing to turn off their devices for the day. Continue reading...

Calvijn College was one of the first schools in the Netherlands to ban mobile phones. Four years on, officials report its culture has been transformed Six years ago, as officials at the Netherlands’ Calvijn College began considering whether to ban phones from their schools, the idea left some students aghast. “We were asked whether we thought we were living in the 1800s,” said Jan Bakker, the chair of the college, whose students range in age from 12 to 18 years. Continue reading...

Since 2005, the P2P Foundation has been researching, cataloging and advocating for the potential of P2P and Commons-based approaches to societal and consciousness change. The P2P Foundation (officially, The Foundation for P2P Alternatives) is a non-profit organization and global network dedicated to advocacy and research of commons-oriented peer to peer (P2P) dynamics in society. P2P is an abbreviation of “peer to peer”, sometimes also described as “person to person” or “people to people”. The essence of P2P is this direct relationship, and its core characteristics include: Creation of common goods through open, participatory production and governance processes Universal access guaranteed through licenses such as Creative Commons, GPL, Peer Production Licence. P2P is a process or dynamic that can be found in many communities and movements self-organising around the co-creation of culture and knowledge. Well known general examples include the free/open source software movement; free culture; open hardware; and open access in education and science. The Commons is a concept and practice that has been steadily gathering increased attention and advocates. Deeply rooted in human history, it’s difficult to settle on a single definition that covers its broad potential for social, economic, cultural and political change. The Commons is now demonstrating its power as a “key ingredient” for change in diverse locations and contexts around the world. P2P/commons-oriented communities, values and practices are now also increasingly present in the world of physical production through open design, the sharing economy and co-working in hacker/makerspaces and Fab-labs. These movements represent a cultural shift towards new kinds of democratic and economic participation that we believe are sowing the seeds for a more sustainable, egalitarian future. The P2P Foundation, with its particular focus on the relationship of the Commons and P2P practices, is supporting this Commons transition by helping to share knowledge and develop tools to create common value and facilitate open, participatory input across society. Source: With thanks to graphic artist Juliane Höhle ; twitter = @JulianeHoehle; and Leif Ostman, Uppsala University and Katrien Van Poeck, RUG-CDO. Credit: Stefano Borghi Source text