Breaking My Technology Addiction: Part 2

Last week, Captain FF5 decided to kiss technology goodbye—but she couldn't give her laptop the cold shoulder forever.—Sparkitors

A week ago, I embarked on a perilous, dangerous, nearly impossible mission: to break my addiction to electronics.  I started by completely banning myself from the major time-wasting items in my life for one whole week; this meant no Facebook updates, no mindless music playing, and no Sue Sylvester. So you can get a taste of how things went, here are some excerpts from my “unplugged journal”:

Day 1: I woke up today with high spirits, thinking it would somehow help me get through this difficult time if I stayed positive. This plan failed, however, once I realized that nearly every room in my house had some sort of electronic running. My dad was watching sports in the living room, my sister was watching movies in our shared bedroom, and my mom was on the computer in our dinning room. I could only find relief in the bathroom, laundry room, and my parents’ bedroom… and, unfortunately, those also the coldest rooms in the house.

Day 2: Luckily, school ate up a good majority of my day, otherwise I’m sure I would have gone insane. Among the many annoyances of today: I had to look up words in an actual dictionary, I had to handwrite my history essay, and I had to sit out in the car in order to read my literature assignment without the sounds of Nathan Fillion and the rest of the Castle crew distracting me.

Day 3: I came up with the most brilliant Facebook status! Rather than writing on my FB wall, I had to settle with writing it on my actual bedroom wall. I don’t think my parents were happy with that. Later in the evening, my family started watching Glee… without me. I decided to try my pillow monster idea, but it just looked more like a pile of pillows than a monster. I’ll definitely have to find more creative ways to spend my free time…

Day 4: Another day with lots of homework. Between Andrew Jackson, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and antilogarithms, I think it’s safe to say I'm a couple IQ points smarter. I can’t help but think that if this no-technology ban wasn’t going on right now, a good 4 of the 5 hours I spent studying would have been wasted on the Internet.

Day 5: I had a really strong desire to listen to music today, but I had to settle with singing to myself. I only got to the chorus of “Uprising” before one of my cats started giving me dirty looks. In revenge, I gave the other two cats treats and didn’t give any to her. But then I felt bad and gave her some anyway. She seemed to really appreciate this display of mercy. I think a good relationship may be forming...

Day 6: My friend called to complain that I hadn’t answered her message on Facebook. There was an awkward amount of silence after I explained why I hadn’t. I’m thinking I’ll have to use the “our Internet is down” excuse next time. In other news, I found my old Sudoku book. I also found 52 cents, a math paper from January ’08, and a pinwheel. I think I’ll clean under my bed tomorrow.

Day 7: Last day! By this point, my parents have finally realized how seriously I’m taking this challenge. My dad even turned the TV off when I came in the room to read a book. I’m so looking forward to tomorrow, although I will miss the peace and quiet of life without technology. It’s almost nice not having Linkin Park’s crunching guitars or the whir of my old laptop in my life.

Day 8: Today's the day I'm allowed to bring back one electronic from my ban-list! This lucky item, obviously, is my computer. I have a timer set, even as I’m writing this, for one hour. Once it goes off… so does the computer. Hopefully, this will keep me from falling back into my old habits. I have to say, this little experiment wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. For the most part, I never felt bored. In fact, I discovered that I have even more things to do without my electronics than I did with them!

However, I do realize how important electronics are in today’s world. Yes, there's such a thing as too much, but cutting everything out completely is like living under a rock: you have no idea what’s going on in the world, and it kind of hurts. Hopefully the rest of my challenge will help me achieve a healthy balance of technology in my life. So off I go to complete the next chapter in my journey; wish me luck—I have to survive another whole week without my precious TV shows and my iPod!

We're so impressed that you made it through a week with no computer! We'd try to do the same, but we're pretty sure the Sparklers would riot.

Related post: Breaking My Technology Addiction