A Day Without Technology

The following blog post was originally written as an assignment for a class, but I thought it would be an interesting topic to share. 

Having an entire day without technology turned out being a slightly easier task than I had expected. To start, I would like to be honest and disclose that I did cheat twice. First, my Snapchat streaks are over one hundred days, and all of the effort I put in to keep up with those was not about to be wasted. A few Snapchats were exchanged with my friends first thing in the morning in order to keep the evidence of our hard work alive.  Second, a phone call from my grandma took priority over my homework assignment. While I would understand a penalization for the first offense, I refuse to accept penalization for talking to my eighty year old grandma for twenty minutes.

Over my spring break, I chose a warm and sunny Monday to step away from technology and explore a world more akin to Little House on the Prairie. It started with sleeping in until 9. No alarm clocks were used to wake me from my slumber––difficult as that might have been on my week off from school––and there was no scrolling through social media for ten minutes before getting out of bed––except for the aforementioned Snapchat incident.

Now I was not sure how far I should actually take this assignment because I considered pitching a tent in my backyard, cooking food over a fire, and collecting water from the river across the street. Ultimately, I decided the modern luxury of a bed was too nice to give up. However, I did take the extra step and make my cup of coffee with a French press instead of our Keurig, so I think that is something to count in the “Win” column.

My morning shower was actually not too different from a normal day. It just meant that my family to had to suffer from me singing alone and not with the forgiving background music that I usually play. Also from fear of running out of activities, I took my time in order to fill up more of my day.

As a self proclaimed book worm, this day actually turned out to be fairly easy for me. I laid out in the sun and read an entire book from cover to cover. It was a very soothing and relaxing day spent with Zora Neale Hurston and Janie Crawford. However, as nice as this was, when I finished, I still had a pretty large portion of my day left.

With the urge to feel more productive, I wanted to work on some of my homework, but that would have included the use of the forbidden laptop. If I had done a little more planning, I could have gone to the library the day before and checked out books relevant to my upcoming research paper, but alas I did not and going there on my tech-free day would require the frowned upon drive into town. Instead, I resorted to cleaning. My closet needed a good clearing out, so I started there, making piles of clothes to donate and clothes to sell. Then I went on to dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, and reorganizing basically everything I own. This process proved to be very therapeutic. I was not aware of the amount of stuff I actually owned and never used. Narrowing down my belongings to only the items that are most important and practical left me with a lighter sense of self and also more pleasant surroundings in my space. After this event, I decided to wash all of the dishes by hand. This resulted in two questions from my parents––A.) “Is the dishwasher broken?” and B.) “Are you feeling okay?”

I ended my night with three games of Canadian Euchre against my dad. He, as per usual, won two games to my one. This was quality time that I probably would not have spent with him if I had access to my customary technology, and since most of the time I am away at school, I think he appreciated the change as well.

Overall, I would say that this whole experience had a positive and eye opening impact on my day, but there were some things there were not so great too. I did not realize how often I put on background noise in my life. Music, HGTV, or the Food Network are constantly playing in my everyday routine. Without it, I started to wonder why I have it in the first place. While I could not say for sure, I did notice my focus was more likely to wander without the multitasking added when I listen to the background noise. I also had the feeling of being cut off from my friends. Most of my friends from home are at school because our spring breaks did not line up, and my friends from school are at their respective homes with their families. I was not able to talk to any of them this day, and I felt like I was missing something when I had the opportunity to rejoin conversations. On the other hand, this assignment was spent doing tasks that would not have been completed on any normal day. Perhaps in the future, I will have more productive days if I spent a little more time away from technology.