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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