The other day I took on the Maryland
Media Study challenge, and I am happy to report that I succeeded—though it was
much more difficult than I had thought it would be. At first, I didn’t believe that “unplugging”
myself from media for 24 hours would be all that difficult. Realistically, I really only have to go
media-free for about 2/3 of the day (16 hours) because I usually spend the
other 1/3 sleeping! The beginning of my day
started out well. I woke up, turned off
my iPhone alarm, read the sticky note on my phone that said ‘NO MEDIA,’ put my
phone in my drawer, and subsequently began the countdown for my 24-hour
media-less day. I didn’t really have any
trouble throughout the first part of my day because when I’m in class I usually
don’t look at my phone much because I am a terrible multi-tasker. One challenge I did encounter was knowing the
time. I have a watch that I usually wear
(but to be honest, I usually wear it for more “fashion” purposes than for
“function”), but of course of all days that I forget to put it on—I actually
need to use it for the purpose it was actually made to be used for… sigh…. So
besides being late/a little time-disoriented, I found that I didn’t have much
trouble disconnecting myself from media while I was busy, attending classes,
and going about my normal Wednesday routine.
As soon as I got home, I came about
--this-- close to “breaking the barrier” because my roommate, who had misplaced
her phone, asked me to call her so that she could see if it was in her backpack
somewhere. Thankfully, my phone wasn’t
on my person because if I had found it, my immediate reaction would have been
to just call my roommates phone—all thoughts of the Maryland media challenge overpowered
by the way I’ve been conditioned since adolescence to be dependent on media and
technology. When evening came around, my
day became less busy, and I didn’t have as many things to do to distract myself
from using media, this “experiment” started to turn into a real challenge. On the positive side, I cleaned my whole
room, reorganized my drawers, AND did all my laundry! On the negative side, when I woke up and
checked my phone the next day, I realized I had missed my 2nd pass time (I had
set a reminder for it on my phone), forgotten to call my landlord back, and
missed one of my TA’s office hours… but besides those minor mishaps and the
boredom—nothing that negative really came out of the experience. All in all, I completely agree with the study
in that, in this day and age, using media is more about getting information
than staying constantly connected. In my
experience, the things I missed most while not using media were time, schedule,
and keeping-up-to date issues, rather than issues associated with feeling
isolated or disengaged socially… Then again, I rarely feel isolated due to the
fact that I have 10 housemates J
1 comment:
LOL! I like how you wear your watch as a fashion purpose rather than function. This was quite funny because I sorta do the same thing! So I know exactly what you mean haha. Your negative side of this task seems more than just minor.. I mean missing your 2nd pass time?? That's huge! Landlord as well + missing TA's office hours... Well at least you got to clean your room and do laundry! That's good! I sorta did the same thing... I do know what you mean when you said "AND did all my laundry!". As a college student, laundry can be one of those things like homework and you wait to the very last set of clothes before you do them cause.. lets face it.. procrastinators always do things at that last day something is due. Anyway, good job on surviving such a hard task! I know I had a hard time trying to past the time too haha
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