'Cold-Turkey' Day

      I was quite looking forward to my cold-turkey day. I spend far too much time online and was looking forward to experiencing an 'unplugged' day. Unfortunately, however, I realized that my schoolwork, namely my online courses, completely prevented me from disconnecting. I hadn't even began my cold-turkey day yet and my eyes were already open to how dependent I have become upon digital literacies. Since I wasn't able to completely disconnect, I decided to give up my mobile phone as well as Tumblr, a microblogging website that I use more than any other social media. Again, however, I wasn't able to completely abandon my phone. What if there was some sort of emergency? What if my wife was injured at work? When I was in junior high school I went out without a phone all the time, it just wasn't that common for a junior high school kid to have a mobile phone. Now, I couldn't imagine going anywhere without it. I've become so dependent in just a few years. It's startling to think how much digital literacies have altered the way I live my life. I decided to make a concession and take my phone with me, but only use it in case of emergency. I use my phone quite a lot during the day and felt that not using it would be an acceptable sacrifice. The experience had less of an impact than I was hoping for. I had only one minor convenience while cut off, and that was scheduling. I do all of my scheduling on my phone, I don't use a day planner, calendar, or any other sort of physical schedule. So, when I had to change an appointment, I found myself hunting through my apartment, looking for a piece of scrap paper to record the scheduling change on. Somewhat disappointingly, I received no text messages that day. I'm sure the experience would have been much different had I been denied the ability to engage in communication with friends and family.

What I did learn was how much I use my phone and for passive consumption of information during downtime instead of using these tools to engage. I use them as diversions when I feel there is nothing better to focus my attention on. Rheingold wrote that we must, "learn to sample the flow, and... focus our attention" (2010, p. 24). I must confess that this is something I need to consider more often, especially when reaching for my phone.

References

Rheingold, H. (2010, September/October). Attention and other 21st-century social media literacies. Educause Review, 14-24.