As a senior at Parsons The New School for Design, Ingrid Zweifel was hunting around for a thesis project. She knew she wanted to explore how technology has changed the way people interact. One day, she met a woman who gushed about great blind date she’d recently had. “She said to me, ‘He left his phone at home for me. I was, like, oh, my God, that is beautiful,’” Zweifel recalled. A thesis was born. Zweifel’s project began with buttons stamped with the phrase “I left my phone at home for you.” The response to the buttons was so positive that she stuck with the concept. Starting on Nov. 25, Thanksgiving Day, her final product will be available in stores: a kerchief with the inscription “My Phone Is Off For You.” (More on Time.com: Bye-Bye, Baby: Why Selling Your Crib Hurts) What’s special (and innovative) about the kerchief is that it blocks cell service. By wrapping your phone in the “Phonekerchief,” you are rendering yourself digitally unreachable — for the benefit of your companion. I received a link to Zweifel’s project from my friend Saul, who’s heard me more than once evangelizing about my own self-imposed policy of “cell phone-free Sundays”: no texting, no emailing, no checking the map. My phone is turned off, or usually not even with me. Zweifel says she banishes her phone from the dinner table every night, even if she’s just eating something quickly by herself. (More on Time.com: Joel Stein’s Day of Unplugging) “Unlike breakfast or lunch, which you often have at work, dinner is a time with meaningful people in your lives — family and friends, so it’s a perfect time to put your phone away,” she says, adding: “And Thanksgiving is the dinner of all dinners, so I love that [the Phonekerchief’s release is] happening on Thanksgiving.” My own cell-phone-free policy was borne not out of respect for relationships with intimates, but out of a longing for interactions with strangers. One day, a year after I’d purchased an iPhone, I realized that I hadn’t … Continue reading Turning Your Phone Off as a Technological Gesture of Affection