What did we ever do before technology? Don't you hate when people say that? We got by just fine. Don't' get me wrong, I love technology, I think it's great, but I also think with all good comes some bad. My latest technology behavior has allowed the bad to seep in quite a bit in the past few weeks.
I have been feeling for some time that my habits of using/dealing with technology are getting out of hand. About a month ago two of the girls I work with decided to do a "media fast" which was to cut out movies, TV, Facebook, and music. As they told me their plans I thought to myself what a great idea - good luck to the both of you. But, I also thought to myself, I should try to cut at least Facebook out for a month, or something. Not that I got on Facebook that much in the past, but as of recently I have spent FAR TOO MUCH time on that social network. And what am I accomplishing on there to begin with - NOTHING!
Just yesterday I was on the phone with my cousins wife Shellie, and the topic came up - "technology, and how it's taking over our lives." She told me of a friend of hers who decided to do this "no technology day" once a week. As I continued to think about this during the day I decided that I need to take one day of the week where I don't have any use of technology. I have decided that I will do Sunday, only because it's a day where I know I won't have any need of the computer, texting, TV, and movies. It would probably be hard to do this during the week when I am in school, and at work. On top of all that I am teaching my Gospel Principles class on Sunday which is about "Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy," and figured that one way of keeping the Sabbath holy would be cutting out technology.
Listen, I'm not PERFECT by any means, but a person can try! So, I am going to try!
Let me begin with texting. I have done my fair share of hanging out with people and in the middle of "hang out" I'm texting another person - I try not to do this, but if they start texting someone I just go ahead and text someone also. I'll show them, right? That is a huge irritation of mine, texting when you are with people - totally rude. So is texting at church, but we won't get into that today. Next media downfall of mine, is TV. I don't have TV anymore, thanks to the cable company who finally caught on that we shouldn't be hooked up. It's been 4 months without it and I really haven't missed it that much. However, I have turned to other things - like the internet, and more frequent Netflix watching. Speaking of internet, I am grateful for my neighbors who were nice enough to give me their password to use the internet. The other thing I am grateful about is that by using their internet I don't have full bars so it doesn't allow me to watch videos online unless I'm willing to wait hours for the movie to download and that would be a negative...I'm not that patient. So, how do I watch my show Glee and other instant movies - oh yeah, I wait until I'm at school, or my parents house. Which both of those places don't allow much time for movie or TV watching. I'm not watching much TV these days, and my movies at this time are about two at a time per week due to work/school/life. Lastly, it all then comes back to this wonderful world wide web. I'm an addict to Gmail, Netflix, Blogger, allrecipes, Goodreads, and that social network Facebook. It needs to stop, it all needs to stop. I need to get this technology lifestyle under control before I lose all control.
This is what I'm going to try to do on my one day off of technology a week.
- No Texting! I will do phone calls only on this day. Besides, what happened to the old fashioned "calling someone" to shoot the breeze.
- No TV (already do that) - so, in my case NO MOVIES! I will read a book, or study my next lesson for Sunday school.
- No COMPUTER. PERIOD! No computer for me means, no solitaire, no playing with photo's, no iTunes organizing, and anything else that has me using my computer. Oh hello, the internet - none of that will be going on. Duh!
- No Internet. As stated above.
- I want to say no music, but I feel that some music is okay to listen to. Maybe eventually I'll just cut it all out.
* As for my latest social media addiction I am going to limit myself to once a week on Facebook. I can do this, I did it before, and I need to start doing it again. Besides, my brother hates Facebook and already gives me a hard time when he catches me on there. He usually say's something like, "Are you on Facebook? I want you to get the hell off of there in my house!" Rude, huh. It's all out of love. He's right though, he is most definitely right in my opinion; I need to stay the hell off Facebook for a while. (Side note: Facebook isn't all that bad - there are people from my mission that make me grateful for Facebook because it has helped me stay in contact. Facebook does have some positive things...)
I can't say this is going to be easy, but it is going to be worth it to try. (I bet this reminds some of you of my mission homecoming when I said no more "Friends" TV show...the worst part about that whole thing is my families wonderful dedication to recording all the episodes that I missed as I was out serving - then me asking them a month before I got home to get rid of all the VHS recordings they had made...only to find out several years later they released all the episodes on DVD - who knew???)
What are your thoughts on no media, is there anything else I can do to limit myself?
