I decided that for me a good digital experiment was to have a two hour long digital fast. From 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm digitalization was cut out of my life.
It was weird to say the least, I was restless, bored, fidgety and annoyed. At first i thought it would be a good idea if I took my dogs out for a walk, to kill some time. Even then when I was just going for a walk, I was extremely tempted to take my ipod and phone with me so that I wouldn't be so bored. But i didn't and as much as I thought it was bad at the time, I now feel in retrospect that it was for the better. As I walked down the street I actually heard the other people talking and I saw their faces. I looked at people that I had probably seen a hundred times but never really noticed. As I was walking back from the walk I ran into a neighbor of mine and instead of just waving as i usually do when i have my Ipod on i actually stopped and said hello, a nice change i think.
When i got back i got as far away from the television as i could. I didn't want to hear or see it. I thought that it might be a good idea to read my book for English class since i was behind and I didn't have anything else to do at the moment. So i read and afterward I noticed i didn't read because i should to i read because it needed to be distracted. So I read and kept reading untill I became restless again. it was 9:30, and instead of thinking that I had 30 minutes left of quiet serenity, i thought I had 30 minutes to kill. I spent the rest of the time playing with my dogs, and talking to my mother about school and stuff like that.
I didn't enjoy it but I think it was good for me to do, I think it even if only slightly lowered my dependence of technology. I think there is a lot to say about how i saw what i was doing. I expected to be bored and restless so that was no surprise. However I was little shocked, and maybe its because i hadn't given it much beforehand, how much digital there is. if there is anything this experiment has taught me its how frequent digital is in our life and how it is related to nearly everything.
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Evan,
ReplyDeleteYour strong and engaging description makes up for the predictability of the analysis.
For next time - go deeper - think further - for instance, the Habits of Mind, "How did this situation develop? How will it likely continue to develop? How does this situation relate to my general perspective of how I want to live? How important is the situation?"