Data sabbath is the latest fad to sweep the US, with techno-addicts renouncing all that is digital for one day to get back in touch with real life. Ed Power spends a ay avoiding pphones, TVs and computers.

Technology - why won't you leave us alone? From morning to midnight you bark at our heels constantly, harrying and bullying and force-feeding information.

We are propelled from our beds by the clarion call of the clock radio. While we drive to work, breakfast DJs bombard us with mid-Atlantic hooey. Once behind our desks, we discover 200 new e-mails clogging our inbox. The majority seem to offer cut-price Viagra and the chance to share in the lost fortune of a Nigerian diplomat (a little upfront investment required - but think of the rewards, my friend).

And then our mobile phones start to ring. They don't stop. Oh, and the iPod's batteries have run out. Again.

For those actually employed in the technology industry, things are even grimmer. The working day is a blur of error-messages and eye-strain. Servers refuse to serve. Attachments won't attach. Nobody can figure out how to use the new espresso machine. You want to lock yourself into a toilet cubicle and yell. But first you've got to figure out why your laptop had just switched itself off.

You know what you need, don't you? A "data sabbath" - a day-long technology detox. First conceived of by frazzled Silicon Valley tech-slaves, the data sabbath is a 24-hour repudiation of the modern. No phones, no computers, no TV. And definitely no e-mail. For an entire day. Yes, it sounds tough. Traumatic, perhaps. Because the ultimate irony of technology is that, while easy to hate, doing without is harder still.

The purpose of a data sabbath, say aficionados, is to reconnect with the "real world" - that strange place where Google, Sky Digital and Xbox Live hold no sway. And though you will detect a whiff of new-age mumbo jumbo in the concept, the images conjured - indolent walks, meaty conversation, a chance to catch up on your reading - are undeniably tempting.

In the US, the data sabbath has quickly achieved a large and dedicated following among tech-industry employees. Sabbath clubs have sprung up in San Francisco and Seattle, the twin hotbeds of America's IT sector. Full-time sabbath organisers have opened for business. The phenomenon has been lampooned in the Dilbert comic strip - confirmation it really has struck the big time. Steve Jobs, the evangelical chief executive of Apple Computers, is rumoured to be an ardent 'sabbie'.

As with all vogues that emanate from the US, the arrival of the data sabbath here is surely a question of when rather than if. At the moment, however, observing this sabbath remains a matter of individual initiative.

For my data sabbath I chose a Sunday - a day when I seem to spend the majority of the time loitering with very little intent anyway. Renouncing e-mail would, I feared, be the biggest challenge. I am a hopeless addict, unable to pass more than an hour or two without being seized by the urge to scour my inbox for fresh communiqués. Television, I will happily do without. Video games, I can imagine taking a holiday from. But a day divorced from e-mail? Thinking about it is enough to turn my knees to jelly.

The experiment does not begin promisingly, when I forget to wake up. Having given my alarm clock the morning off, I slumber until well past 11. This isn't how it was supposed to be. I had imagined rising at the crack of dawn, drinking in the sun-up while readying myself for a brisk trot to the shops.

Instead, I stumble downstairs, possibly wearing my clothes back to front and reach for the kitchen CD player. Tsk, says a voice in my head. Am I forgetting so soon? Data sabbath - stereo bad, silence good. Glancing over my shoulder, I expect to find my conscience standing before me, a disapproving tut on its lips.

Utter quiet, it turns out, is distressingly loud. On and on it wails, like a siren blaring in perpetuity. You are reminded of one of those disaster movies in which the hero awakens to find the rest of mankind has quietly and calmly been obliterated while he slept. (A glance out my window inclines me to rule out the possibility - although where I live you never can be sure.)

Mooching into the living room I install myself on the couch, from where I do not switch on the television, do not flick to Sky Sports and do not watch the football highlights. A peculiar sensation settles upon me. I cannot rule out the possibility of it being the deepest boredom. Determined to hold out, I pick up a book from the coffee table and leaf through it. A few minutes seem to pass. At least I think they are minutes. However, they could be seconds, could be years. Without technology to pace the day, my sense of time and place has been warped and distended.

A few more minutes amble by. Nothing much happens. Actually nothing happens at all. Eventually my wife returns from Mass, Sunday newspapers tucked under arm, and suggests we go out for breakfast.

"Can't," I mutter, scanning the front pages.

"Why not? It's nice day out. You're hungry. I'm hungry. Breakfast would seem the logical solution."

"Data sabbath. Not allowed to use car."

"Data what? Have you been up all night playing video games again? Is that why you're acting so strange?"

With only meagre resistance, I allow myself to be persuaded that a data sabbath does not forbid car travel (I'm not really convinced, but that's hunger for you). Following a brunch that consists mainly of high-grade caffeine, I decide to go for a walk. Like me, you may regard the concept of walking to no particular destination for no particular reason rather eerie. Not to mention a waste of precious minutes that might be better spent notching up a high score on Halo.

Tramping through the countryside, I begin to experience a peculiar ache. It's not quite a pain - rather an awful, incessant nagging . "E-mail," says the slow dull voice in my head. "Must. Check. E-mail."

Weakling, I shout to myself. Does technology really hold me in such a grip that I cannot go without for one piffling Sunday morning ? "Yes!" barks the voice. "Yes, yes, yes."

By the end of my amble, I am a man at war with himself. One side of me is mortified at my lack of moral fortitude. But the greater part calmly urges me to abandon the data sabbath as a brave but ultimately impractical experiment. Why struggle, it implores. Admit defeat and move on. Where's the shame in that?

"Are you all right?" asks my wife from the front door. You've been standing in the hall, muttering to yourself for the past 10 minutes.

"Just having a think," I say, and slouch upstairs. To my office. To my computer. Data sabbath be darned. E-mail is calling me. I am reminded of the character Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, slinking, against his better instinct, back to the arms of his precious.

What has happened, I think, is that I have stumbled into a fault line of the data sabbath manifesto. Technology isn't the thing that harries us. The pace at which we live life is the proper villain.

Oh yes, computers, phones and e-mail are integral to the incessant whirlwind of our daily routine. Yet, in singling them out for blame, are we not missing the point? Technology shouldn't be regarded as an evil imposed from above. It is an occasionally over-enthusiastic friend rather than an implacable enemy. We all fall out with our mates from time to time. But that doesn't give us cause to ban them from our lives.

As these thoughts rattle around my brain, I lower myself in front of my computer and flick the on switch. The machine whirls to life. I press the dial-up button to connect to the Internet (broadband in the sticks - you're having a laugh). Clicks and groans rack the computer. A message guaranteed to strike me dumb with terror flashes across the screen. "Dial-up number busy. Please try later." The deep shudder that emanates from the laptop sounds almost like a reproachful laugh.