In today’s society about everyone is connected to some type of media whether they realize it or non. Media goes far beyond the typical computing machines. telecasting. wireless. or newspapers. In fact. media spans from picture taking and picture gambling to autos. planes. coachs and rinsing machines and vacuities. When challenged to strip myself from media for 8 consecutive hours. my first idea was that it was traveling to be impossible. Although it was hard at first to wholly cut myself off of what was so prevailing in my life. it was in fact possible.
My first hr of the want started around one o’clock in the afternoon. To get down things off my fellow. Chris. and I made ourselves a delightful tiffin. We made jambon and turkey sandwiches with cheese. boodle. and tomatoes on a toasted whole wheat staff of life with honey mustard to add a small spot of a nip to it all. Chris besides made me caramel dark hot cocoa in his fancy Keurig java shaper. After we had sat down and finished our tiffin we walked to a nearby park. or at least I thought it was nearby when I was able to drive my auto. It turns out that what normally takes merely approximately 10 proceedingss driving ends up being about a half an hr walking.
During our walk to Perinton Park. we played a game called xanthous auto. The nonsubjective if this game is to name out “yellow car” whenever you see one passing in the street. parked in a private road or parking batch or wherever one may be. The regulations to this game are that you can non name the auto if it is a company auto. if the auto is a xanthous clout roadster so it counts as two autos. and if you call a auto that is non xanthous. is a company auto. or the auto has been called by person else. you lose a point. At the terminal of the twenty-four hours whoever has the most points wins! Although it is instead difficult to larn all the regulations and to pick up all the xanthous autos. it is a fun manner to entertain yourself and to go through the clip while walking.
Within my first hr of the media want my emotions were non any different than they were before I stared. Although my phone had been turned off for about an hr. I truly had no feeling to look into it or to turn it on to see what was go oning with my friends or household. I had no feelings of anxiousness or ennui like I predicted that I would. I as really experiencing reasonably good and was holding a merriment clip.
When we eventually got to the park we sat down on one of my favourite xanthous vacillation benches and Chris drew a truly astonishing design. For about 45 proceedingss I sat in awe and watched him do swirling. elegant lines. He made about perfect circles in orange and green that were transformed into multiple peace marks. Zig-zags of blues and purples. random forms that poured onto the paper from his head had me mesmerized. We talked of class while he was pulling. but largely of small things like what my work agenda was or what yearss he had to work. We talked about school and our parents. about the dirt that people deal with when they are friends with certain people. I would look up from his paper filled with colour and inspiration and see an old married twosome walking down the canal way keeping custodies and walking their small old Canis familiaris.
I would see a small male child of possibly 8 or 9 siting his motorcycle with assurance. right behind him was his male parent on his ain bike. What I saw reminded me of those old commercials for Kodak where it the announcer said it was a “Kodak minute. ” To me. the scene that was playing out in the park was my really ain Kodak minute with all types of people brought together though one common involvement. this park.
For those 45 proceedingss I was still non experiencing deprived from the media that ever surrounds me. I did non care that my phone was away and in my pocket alternatively of being in my manus with Facebook invariably up. I did non experience like I was losing out on what was traveling on in the universe around me. When I was sitting on that singing bench detecting the people around me and watching Chris draw. I can candidly state that I was wholly at peace. I came to the realisation that you do non hold to be connected to everyone all the clip through every mercantile establishment of media during the twenty-four hours. I realized that it is all right to “escape” for a piece and merely loosen up.
The following important sum of clip was spent playing hoops in the tribunals that were already art the park. We waited for about 15 proceedingss for the group of cats to complete their game and so Chris and I had a 1 on one game. Actually. we played many games. Since it was acquiring a small chilly merely sitting on the bench we needed to warm up. We figured that if we played hoops we would warm up faster than if we went on a walk to another park down the route. For about 2 hours I got wholly demolished in hoops. Being comparatively tall for a miss one would believe that I would be pretty decent at the game. This was non the instance. Yes. I am tall. but I am besides highly gawky and possess no manus oculus coordination whatsoever. Chris stopped maintaining score after he was winning by 13.
Sing as how we did non continuously play for the two hours I started to experience a small spot fidgety when we would take a few proceedingss to catch our breath and acquire H2O and bric-a-brac. After about 4 hours of being media deprived I began to experience the demand to look into my phone. I had an scabies to look into the clip. play a speedy game of andy birds. or merely see who had texted me. I was get downing to undermine into the societal norms of ever holding your phone on and readily accessible. I wanted to acquire a speedy hole of some kind of media.
Once we finished our games of hoops around four 45. Chris had a craving for some java and I truly wanted some hot cocoa. There was a little java store down the canal that was within walking distance that we decided to travel to. We got to Towpath and ordered what we wanted we had to head right back out. They had a telecasting with the intelligence on and music playing over the talkers throughout the coffeehouse.
Recognizing that there was music playing throughout Towpath and that they besides had the telecasting on at the same time made me think about other shops or eating houses. I found that when I thought about it. about every individual public edifice or eating house or coffeehouse or shop had some kind of media. I think that this is unusual and really a small sad. If we have to hold media provided to us every topographic point that we are. what does that say about us as a whole? What does that say about our society? Is it merely there for amusement for the employees or is at that place some kind of scientific survey demoing it is productive or helpful? I was unable to come to a concrete decision but I was surprised when I found myself acquiring a small defeated and possibly even agitated that media is everyplace. I besides found that through this I did non desire to look into my phone. I did non desire to see what was go oning on Facebook. I did non desire to be like everyone who is so attached to their media mercantile establishments.
We stared our walk back to Chris’s house at about five-thirty. Warmed by our drinks. I noticed that we were walking at a more easy gait. Again. we talked approximately small things like what we were traveling to do for dinner and how much merriment we had had throughout the twenty-four hours even though we were to be without media for 8 consecutive hours.
We eventually got back place and decided that we would hold lemon crusted poulet with parmesan angel hair pasta. Not being able to utilize the cyberspace or cookery books to look up any formulas. we had to improvize. Our lemon crusted poulet was truly merely chicken with bread crumbs and lemon squeezed onto of it and our parmesan angel hair pasta was from a box so it was easy to boil H2O with some milk and so add the pasta and flavorer. Acerate leaf to state the poulet was non every bit appetizing as we had hoped but the pasta was instead delightful.
By the clip we were done feeding and cleaned up the kitchen and did the dishes it was one-fourth to 8. We had a little more than an hr to kill and I was experiencing reasonably good about traveling all this clip without media. Despite acquiring frustrated when Chris reminded me that we weren’t allowed to utilize the computing machine to look up dinner formulas. I was pleased and proud of myself for traveling about 7 hours with no media of any sort. I was non really disquieted about what my friends might be believing since I hadn’t answered any messages that I might hold received. but I was a small disquieted about what my ma was believing. that was if she had even called or texted me.
To go through the concluding stretch of this undertaking Chris and I played Clue and Monopoly. I non merely redeemed myself from the abashing public presentation during hoops but I dominated in both Clue and Monopoly. I deciphered the hints that resulted in Professor Plum being the liquidator in the kitchen with the lead saloon. Even though we were non able to complete our game of monopoly. we counted our monitory value in belongings and the sum of money we had left from the beginning and I besides beat Chris in that game every bit good.
Equally shortly as nine o’clock struck I let out a suspiration of alleviation and said “I did it! ” and stopped playing Monopoly. I was so happy that I was able to state that I had gone 8 hours with no media. The first thing I did was bend on my phone and delay for all the messages to come in. To my letdown. the lone message I had was from my female parent. Not merely was it merely organize my ma. but it was merely a one sentence message inquiring when I was traveling to be place.
I realized that I was non that attached to media as I originally thought. I besides came to the decision that the lone existent ground I am on my phone so much is merely because I am bored and feel like I need to look busy. This feeling of holding to look busy or occupied comes from the of all time traveling of all time altering universe that engineering and media has created. Even in the younger coevalss it is socially engraved in us that we have to hold some kind of media with us at all times. If you do non hold a cell phone you aren’t “cool” if you don’t have the newest version of the iPod you’re labeled as outdated. Everyone needs to hold the biggest and the best. We need 50 telecastings when we go to a saloon so we can jostle nutrient in our oral cavities like a automaton while we get more amusement devouring the media we are exposed to than the nutrient that we are paying for. In all. media is ever around us and the lone true manner for us to acquire off from it is to go cognizant of it all and to so take yourself from it.
