My Digital Culture class initiated a "Media Fast" this weekend where we were all participants. Or were supposed to be. Unfortunately, it didn't go so well for me. I suppose part of it was I was highly unmotivated to stick to it. Life, for me, is very digital. I don't feel like some addict, but I am dependent on many a technological advance. But I don't feel ashamed about that dependency; this world is digital, so why fight it? After all, this is a whole class dedicated to better expressing ourselves on a digital playing field. But, to justify my complete failure, a few points:
Number 1: Communication.
My family is spread all over doing all sorts of crazy things all day long. I thought it was selfish to just turn all communications off. Especially since my brothers are both in Afghanistan and I never know when they're going to call or text, or--sorry to be morbid here--if they will be able to later. Every time I get a text, email, call from them, I drop everything else. It's that important to me. And I didn't want to say, "Sorry, I'm pretending the internet doesn't exist this weekend."
*Good thing, too, because I found out my brother has a romantic pen pal which, if a little strange, makes for a great story.
Number Two: Work.
I work online. I feel like everyone does. I'm a secretary in the library which means I spend four hours a day on the computer doing various things for various projects. There's no way to avoid that. But even after those four hours, I go to my internship--another job based on a computer.
Number Three: Social.
It's not my fault that this weekend my friends were setting me up on various dates to various activities. There's no way to plan that sort of stuff without a phone. I was texting my address, changing times, making plans. And, I mean, I had to take pictures of it all. On my phone. Plus, please note that if I hadn't had my phone to catch some of these calls and make some of these plans...I would have sat in my apartment all weekend doing absolutely nothing because 1) my friends would think I dropped off the face of the earth and 2) I wouldn't have even known some of the ward activities, birthday parties, sunday dinners were going on had I not had my phone. Is this pathetic? No, I really don't think so.
Number Four: School.
There is no way I can do my homework without the internet, and there is no reason I feel I should. It is a glorious and wonderful thing and I'm so glad I can type documents up, research online, find peer reviewed texts and online books--all in one place. But even besides writing papers, I'm writing papers about movies (Lit & Film), doing French homework (web-based), working on a group project (a lot of InDesign and emailing back and forth), and reading various articles (learningsuite, lib.byu, etc). There's just no way to avoid the internet--for any of my classes.
So, yeah, I pretty much failed this media fast completely and utterly. But is that such a bad thing? I feel comfortable in how I use the internet and I enjoy being connected. Even if I could curb some of my time clicking through websites, pinning things to pinterest, stalking people on facebook, I don't feel bad about it. This is our culture, so why fight it? I feel so lucky to be a part of this world of instant connectedness, and I won't avoid it.
P.S. I think facebook gets a lot of flack. It's supposedly a soul-sucking black hole of time wasting. But, really, I find it useful. For one thing, that's often how my brothers communicate--from across the world. I'm allowed to keep up with missionary friends and people on study abroads. I get updates from my various groups, like my ward (where important info like, say, when the temple dedication was being broadcasted) and study abroad group (where, this weekend, we were all working on planning a reunion together). Sure, I also spent an hour clicking through an album of unbelievable facts (did you know some ants explode when attacked?), but that was a social moment too: my roommate and I have never laughed so hard. So...moderation in all things, but complete absence? No thank you.
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