NEEDHAM – With cellphones strapped to their hips and the Internet in their pocket, they hustle down suburban streets, always racing off to somewhere. One child’s swim lessons, another’s choir practice. There’s Hebrew school to attend, and science projects to finish, and, finally, from many suburban families, there is screaming. People want to be unplugged, be unscheduled.

And so, in recent years, town officials have started giving people that opportunity. Monthlong calendars have been created in Needham, Newton, Belmont, and Bedford suggesting daily activities that don’t include watching television or instant-messaging. Nights have been set aside in these towns – as well as in Northborough and Southborough – where meetings and school homework are forbidden, freeing families up to spend a quiet evening together. And in Needham – where the local “unplugged” or “unscheduled” movement began – a few brave souls decided to do something radical last Friday.

No e-mail. All day.

If you need a town official’s permission to shut off your cellphone, aren’t you just replacing one external influence with another? And aren’t “monthlong calendars” an unlikely way to “be unscheduled”?

Besides, everyone knows the only real way to free yourself from the shackles of suburban scheduling is to become a cheesemaker.

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