Media Deprivation: Impossible

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

The idea of the media deprivation challenge intrigued me at first. I was excited, thinking about all the time I'd have to sketch, to cook and finish a paperback that's been collecting dust for months, maybe even write some letters or get out for a walk outside. But as I kept trying to plan the 24-hour block to do this, it kept getting pushed farther and farther back in my schedule. Why?

I am an animator. A computer animator at that. A computer animator taking six classes, one of which being a senior thesis project of producing a short film. I’m also a student with a student org event to run. I’m the kind of person that uses my cellphone as an alarm clock. I wake up and the first thing I do is check my email, check the news, read the updated online comics and then start my day. All throughout the day when I’m at a computer, my Gmail is up with my automatic updating inbox and chat that also connects to my AIM account. Hell, I *wanted* to do this assignment but with all the people I needed emails from for Artweek, with all the researching I needed for my project, and with all the time that needed to go into animating it was just impossible and inconvenient.

It’s odd to refer to making time for non-technological period of existence as inconvenient. Ironic since, as I write this very paper, I not only have the Washington Post article open in one window, but also Gmail (where I am chatting with one friend in Baltimore City and another in Osaka, Japan), Facebook, Digg and Livejournal. Pathetic. It’s at the point where it becomes an unconscious cycle to just go from site to site checking for the most minuscule updates, the smallest signs of communication being directed at me. And when none are to be found, the cycle resumes circulating into the biggest waste of time. I don’t recall being diagnosed with ADD, but somehow when the words don’t come out just right, my brain will deviate back to Firefox and mull around until I remember “Oh yeah, I should be writing a paper.” And here I am again. Never mind the fact that Gmail will tell me when I have new mail, I’m compelled to check again for my self.

In my Orality essay, I mentioned briefly the “toxic loneliness” described in the End of Literacy article. It was mentioned again in the Longest Day as a form of isolation and even homelessness. “The 24 hours I spent in what seemed like complete isolation became known as one of the toughest days I have had to endure." How sad that the uncomfortable silence and the loneliness we feel can be comforted by the humming and buzzing of monitors and the clicking of keys. My family grew up always having some form of media playing in the central part of our house. In the rare case the TV wasn’t on, it was the radio or my little sisters blasting music from their iPods or MySpace pages.

We feel comforted by machines that place us into passivity. Is that where all the time goes; into this passive state of absorption? It’s been programmed into this generation since such a young age. Even in elementary school we students held such a higher preference for days that instead of a worksheet, a science lab or a lecture, we just plopped down to watch a video or got to work in the computer labs. Fact is, we find it easier to learn when we are being entertained. And now that everything has the guise of entertainment, we think we are learning, but in truth we are either being sold something or having money made off us merely by granting them our viewership (and maybe even our consciousness…creepy.) Has it just become second nature to tune out the world, but at the same time rely on the invisible interconnectivity? Even in the absence of these technologies, people are legitimately hit with what we call "internet withdrawl"

You know, after writing this...I find myself asking more questions then answering them. I want to go on a technological diet. It is all so ridiculous. I feel so disgusted and almost ashamed. It is hard to accept that to be an contributing citizen, to be an active person in someone else’s life today, the sacrifice we make to technology is almost required. Those who choose to abandon what we see as ancient technology (ex. electricity), such as the Amish, still survive in their small communities, but as self-exiled outcasts of our progressing society. So now we have the two extremes. Where can the middle ground be found between these two? When will the nostalgia for times before the internet, cellphones and television really surface? Time will tell.

I am actually guilty of this too.

And so, the current score is…
Times I caught myself from going into the webpage cycle: 4
Times I went full circle in the webpage cycle: 2