Fasting in a World of Media

This Media Binge-Fast was really interesting for me. I’ve done media fasts before (personally I’m not a huge fan of social media or the pretending that largely goes on there), but I’ve never have done what would be close to a media binge. I rarely ever walk around with headphones in, let alone sit in front of multiple screens for any extended period of time. So, for this fast and finals quickly approaching, I did what was acceptable to do: I bought the Fallout Classic Bundle on Steam, and played the heck out of it. In about 3 days, I had cumulated up to 17 hours of total playtime (the Wasteland is so interesting) and I while I was playing I would constantly text my friends and check social media as well. At first it seemed stress relieving (having breaks between homework and studying is nice), but binging on media made my days seem to go by so much faster, I felt more crunched and rushed to get everything done. There was multiple moments where I found I couldn’t quite focus on my work or other people as much when I was doing this, I was experiencing quite the juggler’s brain. I tried to binge as much as I could, and the first 3 days were no real trouble for me. I was making sure I was constantly cycling through Instagram, Facebook, and texts.

The fast was actually more difficult than I expected, it was almost as if I didn’t want to stop binging and I had a constant struggle with whipping out my phone and getting on social media. There were times I almost absent mindedly messed around on the internet, and I wouldn’t call it a true fast, but I would say I was on social media and digital media more than I usually am. The days went by slower, I felt as if I had more time to do things and school seemed, surprisingly, to stress me out less. I felt more connected to my friends and family, and I could focus a lot more on my school work and essentially anything which required my attention. All in all, I would say I learned a lot from media binging and fasting, and if I had a preference, I would choose to fast more than not.