So this abstinence thing was harder than I thought it would be and I realized how much I take the internet for granted. Over the 24 hours I realized that I am very much a here and now person which tells you how patient I am. During the abstinence period I was tempted several times to go online to check sports scores. I am a huge sports fan and ever since I was able to check sports scores on my phone it has become a habit for me to check when the Mariners are playing and I’m not near a computer. I was out with some friends the other night while I was abstaining and my friend asked me to check the Cubs score and I told him that I couldn’t cause of the assignment. We then got into a conversation about how difficult it was and my friend told me that he thought he could do it for longer. So I dared him to do it with me. Literally 10 minutes after me and my friend had made this 5 dollar bet that he couldn’t go 24 hours he was on another friend’s phone checking the scores.
This incident occurred maybe 3 hours into my abstinence and I began to question if I could do the whole thing. But I still had 21 hours to go and only 6 of them would be spent sleeping. So the next morning when I woke up my first instinct was to check my email like I do every morning, and then remembered I couldn’t check it for another 15 hours. Man this is hard especially for communicating. I have several friends who are traveling abroad and we send each other online messages via facebook and twitter as to how each of us is doing and I must say it was frustrating not being able to read what my friends were up to.
Now the amount of time I am on the internet varies from day to day. Some days I just check my email where on other days I’m often chatting or playing games, or just simply browsing the internet for things to buy (or that I want to buy eventually). So I had time that I needed to fill that I usually devote to internet. I’ll tell you it was nice to take a day off from school because all of my classes are online, it was like a mandatory day of hooky. So I began to watch a movie to kill time but after the 90 minute movie I realized I needed to do something else, and that’s when I got productive. I mowed the lawn, unloaded the dishwasher, cleaned the living room, and did 3 loads of laundry. Now you d think that would take a long time but in reality I had only killed about 3 and a half hours. So with 11 hours to go I made lunch called some friends and we hit up the mall. Cruised it like we did in high school and slowly realized how lame cruising the mall was. We then went and saw the new transformers movie and grabbed some dinner. Then we went bowling and before I knew it the 24 hours was over and I hadn’t even noticed. I didn’t realize how distracted I was and then I began to take other things for granted, like, what if there were no movies like I’ve heard my grandparents talk about so often, I’d probably lose my mind because of there is one thing I love more than sports its movies, but also things like automatic scoring at bowling alleys, I have no idea how to manually score at bowling. Other things like my Ipod, that I use to entertain me when I mow the lawn rather than have to listen to the mower, or even the dishwasher and the washer and dryer I used earlier having to do dishes and laundry by hand. So looking back I realize that the internet abstinence wasn’t so bad, now if you asked me to abstain from all technology I would have probably called you crazy and lied on this whole assignment.
Peace, Love and Rock and Roll
Dave
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I'm right with you on the idea "if you asked me to abstain from all technology I would have probably called you crazy...."
ReplyDeleteI doubt I would have lied, but I might have failed and searched for sympathy points from the teacher.
Looking back on the experience, I think it would have been easier if I had planned in advance a series of distractions. Four loads of laundry wound up on my to-do list, by the way.
HA! Yeah, cruising the mall is so high school. That part made me laugh.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Chelsea, it sounds like you had the 24 hours planned out well with friends and fun activities. It's crazy how much time we all actually spend inside this mental "space" we call the internet. It does take up way too much of our time, because it feels like the world is at our fingertips.
I don't have a phone with internet access, but I think if I did, the whole assignment would have been a lot more difficult. I'll bet that was one of the biggest temptations for you, being a big sports fan and all.
Dear David,
ReplyDeleteThis was great. I feel your pain! It's no surprise that someone raised in this particular time would find it so difficult to abstain from the internet. I don't mean this to be judgemental in any way. I think that technology is great but I guess that this experiment is good to make us all stand back and really think about it. You sound like a guy who likes to be involved with life and you do this a lot with technology. Thank goodness that you (or me for that matter) will not have to give it up. It's a great way to keep connected with what's up to date in sports, friends, etc. Like you said, you've got friends traveling abroad and in the past there would be very little contact but it's really cool to be able to kind of be there with them when you're able to easily stay on track through modern technology. All is well now that we can plug back in! Anna Jess
I too agree with you that this assignment would have been a lot harder if we had been asked to abstain from all forms of technology. I’m not sure I would have been able to stay away from a phone, TV, and movies for 24 hours – after typing that, it sounds bad! I also found it hardest when I was around other people who wanted to use the internet for things such as looking at e-mail and sports scores. At least we can return to online school…..and all else cyber now!!
ReplyDeleteI agree with not realizing how much we rely on the internet until it is no longer there. When we get into an online routine it is easy to see how much we take the internet for granted when we no longer have access to it.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly I tried to plan ahead for this assignment as well. I tried to think of things to keep me busy and distracted from using the internet. Watching movies and going out with friends are good ways to do this. But even then many of us still use the internet to check movie times or coordinate our plans by using email or social networking.
You are right when saying this assignment would have been much more difficult if we had to abstain from all forms of technology. I spent a lot of my time texting and talking on my cell to pass time.