A Day Without Technology
Cheyenne Crowe
How can one survive without a phone??
I have never really thought about what I would do without technology, especially my phone, because it is always with me; I rely on it for entertainment! I was somewhat nervous about this assignment because I was pretty sure I was going to be bored and have nothing to do all day... Thankfully, that wasn't the case!
Picking the Day
I had to really think about and plan when I was going to do this assignment because I knew I had a lot of homework online and needed to get it done on time. I decided I would work on a good amount of homework on Friday, go without technology on Saturday, and finish what homework was left on Sunday.
I crossed off a large amount of my homework list before Saturday, so I was very relieved!
The Big Day!
Saturday morning came, more like Saturday afternoon since I didn't have an alarm wake me up, and I was ready to conquer the day! I did not have near as hard of a time as I thought I would; I think the fact that a friend was doing it with me made it a little easier. I got a lot done and was rather productive! The only struggle I came across, was being around my friends while they were on their phones and not engaging in conversation... this got rather annoying very quickly!
I cleaned my room... finally! It didn't look quite this good, seeing as how this was taken on move-in day after we got everything set up just perfectly; however, it looked much better than it did!
I did laundry... finally! I had been meaning to get this chore done for quite a while, but kept putting it off; I figured this day was the perfect time to get it done!
After I got all of my chores done, I went to lunch at The Local and walked around King Street with my two best friends. Of course, Meredith and I had to stop by Boone Belles! We had so much fun that afternoon and had great conversation and I realized it was because we didn't have our phones to distract us; we were all engaged in the conversation and never ran out of things to talk about. I didn't think about my phone one time while we were together. I think we should do this more often!
To end my day without technology, I went to hangout with some friends at their apartment. Of course getting there used the technology of a car, but I left my phone and everything else behind in my dorm. We had a lot of fun and I didn't find myself missing my phone until we were all sitting around and they pulled out their phones and stopped talking. This is the only time I became frustrated with this project because I felt I had nothing to do because I couldn't turn the TV on and I didn't have my phone to look at, so I had to sit and try to get them to get off of their devices, which didn't work too well. My eyes were opened to how much technology consumes our lives; the fact that I wanted my phone to entertain me when there was a room full of people to talk to is sad. Human interaction should be valued more than technology.
Lessons Learned
Overall, this was a great experience! I realized how dependent we are on technology, not just for entertainment, but for life as well, such as homework and work and such. My eyes were opened to just how rude people can be with technology by ignoring others to look at a screen of some sort. I learned that conversations are so much more intriguing when technology is not there as a distraction. I think human interaction is the most valuable thing in life, but technology is not too far behind. As a teacher, it is important to remember this and understand that students are going to want to play with technology and it should somehow be incorporated into the learning environment. As I said before, technology is entertaining, so why not incorporate it into the classroom and make learning entertaining as well!
Another lesson learned is that I really really really love Netflix and Pandora... I forced myself to stay busy so I wouldn't think about them all day.