Blog Post #1 2-5-11
I knew the task of cutting out media would be difficult, but I was not prepared for the anxiety having no cell phone or access to Facebook caused me. The last weekend in January my phone had coincidentally broken, so I thought it would be the perfect time to cut out my use of the computer for a day and try to watch less television. The thing about the computer is that it is not just something I go on when I’m bored. In entering college as a freshman, I left behind my closest friends. We stay in contact based on the internet and our phones. We have a Facebook message where we all describe any exciting events that happen to us. I send and receive at least one text to/from all of them everyday. College may have separated us by distance, but I feel as close to them as ever, because of our constant media outlets. Without social technology for a day I felt so out of touch. McLuhan, although writing in the 1960’s had an amazing insight into present technology. He observed media technology had “overthrown regime of time and space”(McLuhan 16). He could not have been more intuitive about 2011’s technology, because with my phone and with Facebook, I have absolutely no problem talking to my friends anywhere at anytime of the day. He later describes, “we now live in a global village, a simultaneous happening”(McLuhan 63). My friends and I are able to still be there for each other whenever needed. They are my community, they are my world, whether we are together or not. Facebook today is the “middle region” Meyrowitz describes in his book No Sense of Place. In his definition, “Middle Region behavior develops when audience members gain a “sidestage” view. That is, they see parts of the traditional backstage area along with parts of the traditional onstage area”(Meyrowitz 47). With things like Facebook and Skype, I can be at home, in my bed doing whatever I want, but have to have the “frontstage” action of talking to an audience. I can be in a place where no one is present and suddenly be entertaining my friends or talking to teachers through email. I become in two worlds, a world in private, my backstage, and a world where I am adhering to the public. According to AOL techcrunch, “teens spend thirty-one hours on Facebook a week”(AOLtechcrunch). It is sad that people are spending more than four hours a day on Facebook when they could be spending those hours where they actually are, physically with people. However, at the same time it allows people to keep in touch, you never have to lose friends because of distance and time anymore, which I think makes for longer lasting, stronger relationships.
In being without a cellphone or computer, I found myself needing to keep going every minute. I could not stop because any moment of relaxation, I used to find myself talking on the phone or using the computer. However, I found the experiment effective in putting me in a definite physical space. I am always connected in some way to the people from home and it was important for me to truly be where I was at college in New York for a day. Without technology, I found myself needing a new way to relax, so I joined a yoga class. Cliche I know, but I needed something to get me up and awake that was not technology, and it was fun being in a place where everyone was cleansed of technology for an hour and a half. During the day I stayed close to my college friends to keep me occupied and I definitely think the experiment taught me to spend more time with them and less time with Facebook. However, going out at night without my cellphone is a difficult task. It is basically my security blanket. I check it whenever there is an uncomfortable or quiet moment, and without it I found myself much more anxious and nervous to be there. I felt much more thrown out in the cold. According to MSNBC, the “average american teen sends and receives 3,339 texts a month”(MSNBC). That is about one-hundred and eleven a day, so apparently I am not the only one who uses their phone so much.
(Choney)
Two people who were unimpressed by my ability to go without technology for a day were my parents. They love the ability to still keep in touch with me all the time even though I am out of the house and out of the state. McLuhan writes, “Our new environment compels commitment and participation. We have become irrevocably involved with, and responsible for, each other”( McLuhan 24). Even though we no longer live together my parents can be just as involved in my life as they were before because of technology. They call, they text, they email, so that they can know how I am doing whenever they miss me. Technology has certainly eased their worries about me a lot with their ability to still participate in my decisions and talk to me whenever they want to.
I cannot fully say from this experiment whether or not technology has changed my life for the better or worse. McLuhan’s book The Media is the Massage is spot on in determining how the internet and text-messaging would effect our relationships and form our communities. However, I worry about the effect of technology in our lives at all times, I think it is always important to stop and take a look around where you physically are.
Work Cited
Choney, Suzanne. “Average American Teen Sends and Receives 3,339 Texts a Month.”
Technolog: Msnbc.com. 14 October 2010. Web. 5 February 2011.
Deleon, Nicholas. “How do you compare? Teens spend 31 hours a week online.”
Crunchgear. 10 February 2009. Web. 5 February 2011.
McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium in the Massage. Ed. Jerome Agel. Berkley, CA: Gingko Press,
2001. Print.
Meyrowitz, Joshua. “Media, Situations, Behavior.” No Sense of Place. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1985. Print. 35-51.
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