Make a blog entry focusing on these questions.
How successful were you at going Tech/Literacy free for a day?
-> I failed twice, the first for communication emergency and the second out of my personal obsession with checking out email.
What was the hardest thing about trying to go Tech/Literacy free?
-> Resisting my snow-balling paranoia that I should be missing something very important without checking email.
How did your friends/family respond to you do the task?
-> In fact, they didn’t notice it at all.
What was the short term impact on you of doing this task?
-> My cooking without seeing recipes online went pretty bad.
Was there any long term impact on you?
-> I will probably try to become a bit more “analogue” and less “digital” just in case I don’t have access to the internet which can happen any time.
Did going Tech/Literacy free cause you to get more physically active or less? Why?
-> Not much different this time.
What did you miss the most while you were going Tech/Literacy free?
-> Checking email as well as recipes.
What did you miss the least?
-> News about the world outside Indiana.
I asked you to keep a simple journal about your experiences. Please review those entries and discuss something of interest that you wrote down.
-> I realized that many basic aspects of my life are dependent on the internet.
Overall, what did you think of this experience?
-> It was a good experience and I will do it again, using different definitions of technology (i.g. spending a day without using gas oven and microwave).
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http://jindaewoo193.wixsite.com/daewoo/tech-free-day
Avoiding the Use of the Internet
Location: My residence
Time: 6am to 6pm on Sunday, September 25
6am
I disconnected my three devices (the laptop, the tablet and the smartphone) from the internet. Actually, I turned off and put away the tablet and the phone. A nice start. I will only read and write on my laptop.
7am
I am already wondering about what email I would have got from Dr. Hanauer. I couldn’t get rid of thinking about the email from him. Is this a withdrawal symptom or just a legitimate, academic concern?
8am
I am trying to assure myself that checking email after 6pm would not jeopardize my academic performance this semester. In the meantime, I found myself unconsciously trying to check the weather forecast app on Window 10 which requires the internet connection. Since the connection was off, I couldn’t and didn’t have access to the app. Instead, I observed the sky more carefully than usual.
9am
I had an appointment with my neighbors at 9am. I went outside to meet them but I couldn’t find both of them at all. Much surprised by this unexpected situation, I ran up to my laptop, restored the internet connection and sent an instant message to them to which they responded right away. 1st violation of the tech-free rule.
10am
I was outside the house without any electronic device. But seeing other people use the internet made think about Hanauer email once again.
11am
I am back home. Now I will make egg-fried fish for my friends. As usual, I’d like to check recipes online but I can’t. I have only myself to depend on in this cooking process.
12pm
Egg-fried fish turned out to be of much lower quality than expected. I can’t stop thinking that I could have done better with the recipes found online. Also, this sense of failure somehow strengthened the desire of checking email.
1pm
After trying to fight against my paranoia (“Dr. Hanauer must have sent something serious about my work via email; at this point, I better be safe than sorry, so let’s check the email!”), I finally gave up. I logged onto my account and found an email from Dr. Hanauer that had arrived around 11am. In his email, there were some suggestions for revision, completing of which would require a couple of hours. Still, 2nd violation of the tech-free rule.
2pm
I already broke the tech-free rule twice today. I don’t want to do that anymore. I will focus on revising my work, without using the internet.
3pm
I brought several paperback books from the library just in case I need reference in my revision. This time, my guess was right; without these paperback references prepared beforehand, I would have had to break the tech-free rule again or just wait until 6pm, making no progress in my work.
4pm
Doing my revision without using the internet at all.
5pm
Finished my revision around 5:30 and waiting for 6pm to come.
6pm
At 6pm, I sent my revision to Dr. Hanauer and got his response half an hour later.
