Sunday, April 30, 2017

Media Binge & Fast: A challenge in our technological world

When hearing we had both a media binge and media fast, my mind was a little skeptical, as well as worried, about the upcoming week.  I am very dependent on my phone so knowing I’d have an excuse to be on it all the time for the binge intrigued me while knowing I would have to go a couple days without it made my mind anxious.
                From Monday to Wednesday we were challenged to have a media binge.  That is having as much media in front of us at all times.  I am very aware that spending time on my phone is something I do a lot (as well as something I am working on) but for the first day and a half this seemed easy for me.  I would have Netflix going while I did homework and take breaks simply just to sit on my phone going through multiple different social media apps.  The last day and a half of the binge surprised me though, because I found myself getting sick of my phone.  I ran out of things to look at and found myself staring at the same tweets, the same posts, the same pictures over and over.  I had run out of things on my phone.  When Thursday came I was ecstatic to just have a day away from my phone. 
                We were then challenged with a media fast from Friday to Saturday.  While I had just gotten sick of media on all its platforms, I became worried and anxious knowing I would not have something as simple as my phone to fall back on.  My fear was soon brought to life when halfway through the day on Friday I caught myself reaching for my phone.  But the thing was, I didn’t even want to look at it or have a reason, it was happening out of pure habit.  I found myself in a situation where I wasn’t completely stimulated, so my automatic reaction was to reach for my phone and find something entertaining.  After realizing this, I was able to see a purpose in this fast.  I stopped for a second and decided just to take in what was around me.  I was by myself, unstimulated and bored.  Realizing my fault in this lack of stimulation I decided to go find some of my friends and spend some quality time before we were all off doing our own thing this summer, and thank god I did.  I found myself invested and truly enjoying the content of our conversations rather than us just talking to fill the silence.

                While I was afraid for the media fast from the start, I believe it was able to provide a purpose, at least in my eyes.  I was able to appreciate the small things, able to enjoy LIFE.  Thankfully after actually being able to experience this first-hand I am able to take away a better perspective, and have even found myself off my phone a lot more than usual.

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