Cellibacy

Amy survived sixty cell-free days in early 2008
and will now focus on her new goal:
finding Mr. Right by appearing in her own
Super Bowl commecial.
Check out SuperBowlSingleGirl.com.

The project is called “Cellibacy”, but as comedian and advocate Amy Borkowsky explains, “It’s not about giving up sex. I’m giving up something much harder than that.” On January 1st, Borkowsky began her attempt to ring in 2008 with a lot less ringing, as she officially turned off her cell phone service for sixty days, becoming America’s first advocate for moderation in cell phone use.
“Your peak minutes shouldn’t have anything to do with yelling into a phone.”
“It’s not like I O.D.’d on cell minutes and started foaming at the mouth, and friends and loved ones didn’t stage an intervention,” explains Amy, who first explored her love-hate relationship with the phone on her hit comedy CDs, Amy’s Answering Machine: Messages from Mom. “I’m doing this because I really question how being so dependent on my cell phone is affecting my quality of life.”

Like a lot of people, she wonders how it evolved from a smart thing to have in an emergency to something convenient for outgoing calls but not essential, to such a constant attachment to her ear that “my face practically has a tan line in the shape of the VX8300.”

She also notes that the so-called communication device often keeps her from truly communicating, citing the familiar scenario of sitting at a restaurant table with her friend while they’re both on the phone the entire time. “Something’s wrong,” she insists, “when you answer your call waiting and hear, ‘Hi, Amy. Were you gonna finish those fries?”

Amy’s experiment in cell-free living is also inspired by the growing number of studies that potentially link cell phone use to everything from cancer to hearing loss to memory impairment. Though concerned that cell phones may be this generation’s cigarettes, she points out that today the Internet makes it far less likely that the research can be hidden. “Amazingly,” Amy observes, “things have evolved to where you can now use your cell phone to go online and look up how dangerous your cell phone is.”

For particularly urgent situations during her sixty-day cellibacy, Amy will allow herself half a roll of quarters — just twenty quarters — to use for payphone calls because, as the self-described cell phone addict explains, “If cell phones are my addiction, I figure payphones will be my methadone.”

But nobody said it would be easy. Before beginning her cellibacy, Amy consulted a number of people, who had some concerns. (VIDEO TO COME.) Check back daily for updates on what’s sure to be the inspirational, frustrating and, at times, hilarious adventures of a cell phone addict trying to survive cell-free in a phone-filled world.

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QUARTER COUNTDOWN

Amy will be alloted exactly half a roll of quarters -- that's 20 quarters -- to use for urgent payphone calls throughout her 60-day cellibacy. Each of her quarter-worthy emergencies will be chronicled here as she struggles to make her coin supply last through the end of the experiment.

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Amy is also the creator of “Amy’s Answering Machine: Messages from Mom” CDs, with actual messages left by her hilariously overprotective mother