Submitted by Jessica Butcher MBE on Friday 23rd January 2026
Published on Tuesday 24th February 2026
Current status: Open
Open until: Monday 24th August 2026
Current Signatures: 200
(count is updated approximately hourly)
Relevant Departments
Tagged with
4 MILLION ~ Anxiety ~ Awareness ~ bank holiday ~ Banks ~ Build ~ Charity ~ Children ~ country ~ Europe ~ Healthy ~ Holidays ~ loneliness ~ Lost ~ Misinformation ~ Nationalism ~ Opportunity ~ place ~ Scroll ~ society ~ Soul ~ Studies ~ Volunteering
Establish a 'Less Scroll, More Soul' Bank Holiday: An Offline 'In-Community' Day
We think the country urgently needs a breather: an annual reset for our overwhelmed, disconnected lives. A day to log off, look up & reconnect. A government-backed opportunity to build awareness of the grip tech has on us & remind us of what matters in a healthy society: people, place and presence.
We are an addicted, distracted nation. There are studies suggesting 67.4 million hours a day are lost to scroll and that children spend less time outdoors (<1hr) than inmates. We think loneliness, anxiety and polarisation are spiralling & all this before consideration of specific harms: exploitation, misinformation & more.
We have fewer bank holidays than almost anywhere in Europe.
One offline day a year could provide not only a critical reset but an opportunity for charities to showcase community volunteering opportunities.
If you want to sign this petition (as opposed to merely discuss it), you need to do that on the government's e-Petitions website.
216.73.216.219 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 05:11:10 +0100
