Web traffic shows Shutdown Day organizers shot down

From the Niagara Falls Review:

The world was asked to shut down its computers Saturday. The world apparently didn’t listen.

At least that’s what can be gathered from stats offered on the official Shutdown Day website, which showed no noticeable decline in global Internet traffic.

Even so, the Montreal-based site says 86 per cent of people who responded indicated they could go without a computer for one day.

It’s interesting… I had forgotten about Shutdown Day, and when I did a search on Google News, there were lots of articles leading up to Saturday, but none about the results. This is the only one I’ve seen.

Comments 3

  • Hello Graham,

    Gosh, I had not even HEARD about any shutdown day, until I read it in you newsletter.

    Needless to say I didn’t shut mine down…

    Take care,
    Cameron

  • I’m sure that was part of the problem, that no one really knew that this day/event was happening.

    I think it is a good idea to get away from the computer for a while, but when it is such a major communications tool, it’s almost like telling people not to answer the phone for a day.

  • I was a bit disappointed in the turn-out. I guess that’s part of the reason why there wasn’t much news about it afterwards. But the main reason is that they did not have the update on ShutdownDay.org the next day. Instead, the website said: “We enjoyed our day without our computers so much that we decided to take Sunday off too! We’ll be back online on Monday.”

    BTW, I was one of those people who wrote an article leading up to Shutdown Day (published at Associated Content), and I published an update on my blog the day after.

    I’m glad someone else was interested in the results. They are apparently going to try to do the same thing next year, except next time it will be done as a charity benefit.

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