In an era where constant digital stimulation is eroding attention spans and contributing to widespread cognitive decline, some are advocating for a revival of Sunday rest as the remedy. On Sunday, March 30, 2025, The Independent, a British online newspaper, published an article titled “Make Sunday Boring Again: How an End-of-Week Shutdown Could Save Us All.” The argument is that by restoring Sunday as the day to disconnect from screens, social media, and online content, our societies can reclaim their sanity by creating a “stress-free utopia.”
The Independent made the following claims about Sunday rest and society:
• “Not to sound hopelessly nostalgic, but Sundays used to be better, didn’t they?” [1]
• “The Sundays of my youth resemble a blissful, stress-free utopia. Once a week, my family would go to church.” [1]
• “Part of this weekly slowdown was enshrined in law. Up until the mid-1990s, buying and selling on Sunday was still illegal under the Shops Act 1950. Almost nothing was open; to all intents and purposes, consumerism ground to a halt.” [1]
• “It was inspired by the Sabbath, a Jewish custom that’s still observed by practicing Jews today. From sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, abstaining from work is the order of the day.” [1]
• “Christians adopted the concept and shunted it to Sundays, with the fluid principles behind “Sabbath” evolving over the centuries—as evidenced by the changing legislation about what one could and couldn’t legally do on this sacred day.” [1]
• “As early as the year 925, the first King of England, Athelstan, outlawed Sunday trading; subsequent monarchs prohibited everything from sports and music to travel and assembling, other than at church, of course.” [1]
• “But true rest in the digital era is very hard to come by. The online world is constantly encroaching; physical shops may be limited to certain opening hours on Sundays, but ecommerce never sleeps.” [1]
• “Society as a whole, meanwhile, is in the midst of a mass cognitive decline—or “brainrot,” to use the horrifying colloquialism—courtesy of tech. High levels of internet usage and heavy media multitasking are associated with decreased grey matter in prefrontal regions.” [1]
• “It’s why there is a growing movement to reclaim Sundays or implement a new iteration of the Sabbath by shunning devices for one day a week.” [1]
• “Shut the Phone Up Sunday” initiative in February, encouraging people to reclaim their time and “mental clarity” by taking a break from their smartphone for one day a week.” [1]
• “We just weren’t designed to be ‘on’ 24/7. There’s a reason the Sabbath is the fourth commandment—even before ‘Do not murder’, we were told to take a day off!” [1]
Just as past generations imposed Sunday rest by law as the day of worship and communal rest, today’s proponents demand a return to these days when society as a whole embraced Sunday restrictions. Their arguments today are not limited to worship but also to mental, physical, and emotional rest. Sunday is being presented as the day to allow the brain to recover from digital overstimulation. By treating Sunday as the day for cognitive detox, advocates believe that society could push back against “brainrot.”
The Sunday rest movement has reached a new low by using the idea of “brainrot” from digital overstimulation as a convenient excuse to push its agenda. While it’s true that excessive screen time can negatively impact brain function, the idea that rest must specifically occur on Sunday is arbitrary and opportunistic. The reality is that mental recovery can occur on any day of the week, and the need for rest from digital consumption has nothing inherently to do with Sunday. Yet those championing the Sunday rest movement are leveraging this modern concern—along with any other excuse they can find—to reinforce their push for a mandated day of rest.
Instead of allowing individuals the freedom to structure their rest as they see fit, they are twisting a legitimate issue into a justification for their goal—Sunday rest by any means necessary. We were warned that Sunday laws would be introduced through subtle, deceptive efforts, with many supporting them without fully realizing their long-term consequences:
“The Sunday movement is now making its way in darkness. The leaders are concealing the true issue, and many who unite in the movement do not themselves see whither the undercurrent is tending…. They are working in blindness. They do not see that if a Protestant government sacrifices the principles that have made them a free, independent nation, and through legislation brings into the Constitution principles that will propagate papal falsehood and papal delusion, they are plunging into the Roman horrors of the Dark Ages” (Last Day Events, p. 125).
Sources
[1] https://www.the-independent.com/life-style/sunday-sabbath-rest-digital-detox-phones-b2722697.html
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