GREENE COUNTY, OH —Do you spend a lot of time scrolling through social media, watching short videos, commenting on, or reacting to various posts? Do you have multiple cell phones? Are you documenting every move, event, and emotion on social media platforms and find it hard to get through a meaningful conversation without adding to your story? Are you mindlessly scrolling through YouTube videos, chatting on Discord or other apps? We miss out on the valuable and meaningful moments of our lives as we pass the hours with our faces buried in our smart phones, documenting every move through social media and shielding ourselves from the outside world, where real connections and memories are made.

If you notice these mannerisms in yourself – or your friends & family, the Disconnect to Connect Coalition would like to invite you to commit to the Global Day of Unplugging (GDU) right here in Greene County from sundown on March 1 through sundown on March 2.

We invite you to encourage those around you – your business colleagues, your students, your co-workers, your neighbors, your family, and your friends to take this day and carve out precious time to unplug, relax, reflect, be active, visit the outdoors, and connect with loved ones. We ask that you share a message about Global Day of Unplugging on your marquis sign if available, tell your friends and neighbors, share it in a newsletter, announce it on the radio, or any other way that you can think of to get the message out. Use the hashtag #GreeneCountyUnplugged and share our daily posts from our social media platforms.

We hope you will join us in this effort county-wide on March 1, 2024! Ideas to Unplug:

• Join up with Greene County Parks and Trails and take a walk in the woods
• Go on a scavenger hunt
• Have lunch with a friend you haven’t seen in a long time
• Ride a bike
• Bake some cookies
• Volunteer at the Food Pantry
• Grab some sidewalk chalk and help your kids get creative
• Blow and pop some bubbles
• Create a joke jar
• Plan an evening out with friends for dinner and/or a comedy club experience
• Host a game night with cards or board games
• Host a spa night

Disconnect to Connect (D2C) is a committee made up of professionals from several different county organizations, including Greene County Public Health, the Greene County Educational Service Center, Mental Health and Recovery Board of Clark, Greene and Madison Counties, Greene County Children Services, Greene County Family & Children First, and the Greene County Public Library. The group was developed to tackle the concerns of parents, educators, and community members about the effect of digital devices on the mental health and well-being of our youngest community members.

For more information or questions, please call 937-374-5669 or email lfox@gcph.info