Blog Post 13

E-Media Fast It is crazy to think how much we rely on technology in today's society without even thinking about it or realizing it. I found this assignment extremely difficult because I am a huge "texter". I text all throughout the day to multiple people. It wasn't really difficult at all for me to not make phone calls because I RARELY talk on the phone and would rather just send out a quick text. My first attempt at the technology fast was Tuesday and I accidentally responded immediately, out of habit and without thinking, to a text message I had just received. Therefore, I had to start completely over the next day just from that one slip up. Wednesday comes around and I am determined to not slip up. Wow, what a long day! It was so hard receiving text messages from my family and friends and not being able to respond! I felt like I was back in highschool and was on restriction. I had told a couple of my friends (the ones I text the most) the day before that I was doing this fast as an assignment and that I wouldn't be able to receive their calls or return any of their messages the entire day and that the only way I would be able to communicate with them would be face to face or on a land line. Of course they all didn't think that I could do it and said that I would end up texting them back. However, I proved them wrong! :) Honestly, not being able to use the computer might have been even harder than not being able to text especially because this coming up week is the last week of school so I had a million things I could be doing as far as school goes. Fortunately, I deleted my Facebook account a few months back because of personal reasons but if I still had a Facebook account that may have proved to be the hardest of all for me to not access as I had developed an addiction to it! I had the Facebook App on my iPhone and I would get on there SEVERAL times within a day so I am glad that was one less thing I had to "fast" from. Another thing was the T.V. because I have a three year old little girl so when she got home from school and wanted to watch cartoons I made her turn the T.V. on in her room so that I could say I wasn't a part of that! It was awful quiet in my house not having a T.V. on in the living room. Last but not least, we have no land line telephone in our house! People don't realize how convenient cell phones are because if you don't have one and you need to make a quick call AND you don't have a land line then you are stuck with driving to a gas station that has a pay phone (which is becoming more and more rare) or going to a neighbor's house to borrow their phone (if they have a land line). This assignment made me gain a whole new respect for technology and the convenience of it. I learned that I rely on text messaging wayyy too much as a means of my daily communication. I think it would be interesting to have students (particularly teens), do this assignment as well. People are TOO relient on their cell phones, laptops, and T.V. shows and I think this is a great way of proving that to them and making people be aware of how technology has completely taken over our daily lives.