View from the end of the road my parents live on in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Below is an account of my attempt to unplug completely from email and the internet for 10 days while on a stay-cation. For those of you who haven’t heard the term, a stay-cation is a local vacation.
Day 3 – Sunday, April 24
I haven’t been on email since Friday morning. At least I have THAT going for me. I don’t miss email at all and have no desire whatsoever to look at it. Ever since Saturday, my phone is indicating that I have no new email, which I know is wrong. My mobile phone does this from time to time. No problem for me! That makes unplugging even easier because I am not tempted to look at it. I don’t miss my phone and have no desire to talk to anybody on the phone. I am not experiencing withdrawal whatsoever. I’m barely thinking about work. I am really excited that I don’t have to work on Monday. I am barely paying attention to what time it is and I am barely looking at my watch which is surprising because I am a compulsive watch-look-er-at-er.
I had things I wanted to do today, like writing, but I didn’t get that done either and that’s okay because I’ve got the whole week off. It will get done.
Today at Easter brunch with my family in my hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, my 22 year-old nephew Alex told me about a challenge he took last semester in one of his classes at Temple University. He and his classmates were challenged to remove mass media from their lives -- as much as possible -- for at least 24 hours. This included television, radio, phone, email, the Internet and any kind of musical source. I barely watch TV (Castle on Mondays for 1 hour, Cougar Town on Wednesdays for 30 minutes) and disconnecting from the phone, email and Internet does not scare me; however, the thought of disconnecting from NPR makes me anxious! The thought of no music or noise for 24 hours stresses me, too. Because I usually am alone in my office, except when my interns are here, I like listening to the voices on NPR ALL DAY LONG. It keeps me company. I’m an extrovert. I get my energy from other people. I don’t do very well in silence.
My smart nephew was able to engage in his disconnection fairly easily because he headed to the hills (as in the mountains, not my relatives) for 3 days. He was with a group of friends who were NOT participating in the experiment, so he was forced to listen to music during the drive.
Alex told me he enjoyed unplugging and it was very easy because he was in the mountains and the weather was nice. He also had other things around him to do and people around him to keep him company. Imagine that, old fashioned socialization…He commented that had he been in the city (Philadelphia), it would have been tough to unplug with so much stimulation around him.
His challenge was when some people in his group started watching a movie, it was tough to stay away from, but he did it! Alex also commented that by Days 2 and 3, he started experiencing withdrawal symptoms from his laptop. He’s 22 and on Facebook regularly. I get it.
Alex made the observation that we socialize around mass media and when you remove yourself, you remove yourself from your community. After the experiment, his classmates reported that they felt disconnected and could not communicate with others. Alex felt they could not socialize without utilizing mass media. Being asked to NOT use mass media made communicating and socializing much harder for these people.
What is our world coming to???
Total time on the internet today: Zero minutes!
Check in tomorrow when I share how I did on Day 4 and my challenges of staying away from the Internet.
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