Media Binge

The media binge was very difficult for me. I choose to do my binge while my tennis team and I were at the Big Ten Tournament. I thought this would be smart since we would be super busy doing things all weekend. Unfortunately, I forgot about the 8 hours on the bus that it takes us to travel there and home. The rules that I made for myself were that I could use my phone to call my parents, or for an emergency, and that I could use my computer without the Wifi, unless it was necessary for school. It was just fine for the first few hours on the bus, but slowly boredom crept up on me and I was finding myself desperately trying not to use my phone or internet. I called my dad about 4 times on the bus ride out of complete boredom. Somehow I managed to switch between sleeping and studying for the whole bus ride. When we arrived in Illinois it was way easier to not use media. We were busy doing things and practicing, and didn't have much free time, which meant I was never bored. I truly only use media when I am bored or when I need some sort of information. I kind of felt left out of the loop though, because all of my teammates were posting pictures or laughing at meme's while I could not. Throughout the time we were there, I truly didn't use my phone unless it was absolutely necessary and I didn't use my computer once. It was nice to not think about all of the random and pointless things that generally fill up the internet, but also it was kind of strange because I had no idea what was happening in the world around me. The only things that I really knew about were things that were happening in my immediate life circle. I also had no idea if any major news was happening in the world, which bothered me. My media binge only lasted three days. I cracked on the bus ride home. I was completely bored and needed to watch a movie to help pass the time. One can only take so much thinking and self reflection. The media binge taught me a few things. The first thing that it taught me was that I really only use media when I am bored. If I am out and about in the world then I'm not really too interested in using media and I don't need it. When I'm bored though all I want to do is use media. Its crazy.. My urge to use media was very strong. I felt like I needed to do something other than sit and think about things in my life. Another thing that my media binge taught me was that I probably need to do more self reflection. When I wasn't using media, when I was bored all I did was think about things. I realized a lot in the time that I spent reflecting on events. I think something that I will try to do in the future is, instead of give in to my need to distract myself and not think about important things, I will force myself to do personal reflection. Its important for my character development. The last thing that I learned from the media binge is that the world is so focused on media. The other girls on my team were always on their phones. When I wasn't using my phone it was more obvious to me how much other people use theirs. Its a little obsessive. Overall the experiment was interesting and I learned a lot!