"I'm Not Even Sorry"

My assignment: Go a day without texting, using your iPod, or using a networking site.

My interpretation: Go a day without communicating with your boyfriend, without viewing any images of your peers and what they ate throughout the day (InstaGram), or not listening to music all day (or even worse, being forced to listen to the radio).

My outcome: I had decided to leave my phone at home so I wouldn’t be tempted to text throughout the day, but the moment I woke up I received a “Good morning, Sunshine!” text from my boyfriend and responded with “Good morning, Blue Skies!” thus failing that part of the task; I then moved on to not using my iPod for musical purposes. I made breakfast, ate, grabbed my bag, sat in my car, plugged my iPod into the USB device, put on the John Mayer Playlist, and realized I failed this part of the task as well. I moved onto the third option of the assignment; I was determined not to mess this part up. I went to my math class then my art history class and my day was quite busy so I had not even thought about visiting any social networking sites. However, I had watched an episode of “Friends” the night before and texted my cousin with a witty remark about Joey before making my way to bed. She had been asleep so she had not responded…until now. I started the engine of my car, was about to back up when my phone vibrated; I shifted the gear of my car back to park and without even think slid my finger across the iPhone screen. Of course, the Facebook app opened up and my cousin had posted a link with a hilarious “Friends” gif on my wall. The assignment had been failed. We use technology so adamantly throughout every single day that we find it difficult to reframe from using it. I failed at this assignment and “I’m not even sorry.”

“Is Being ‘Plugged In’ Changing Campus Life? A Conversation” or Have We Just Become a Duller Society?

In the article “Is Being ‘Plugged In’ Changing Campus Life? A Conversation” by Liz Williams, Ethan Kolek, and Meg Kluge, students from the University of Massachusetts debate the overtaking of students lives by technology resulting in minimal interaction on campus. They blame this dissociation of students on “plugged-in-ness.” The argument stated is, “students are physically together are not interacting” with each other because they are too busy interacting with their technology. The counterargument, after agreeing that some students do spend a lot of time “plugged-in,” states that “the connection enabled by the World Wide Web, email, chatrooms, and instant messaging allow students to interact with a new, larger community.” Personally, I do agree that the Internet has opened us to a lot of new networking methods and we connect with people whom we may have never associated with but I also know that Internet connections are not as strong as person (in-person) relationships. And although the article argues that, “Shallow people are likely to have shallow relationships whether they are developed on-line or in person” I think that relationships have more meaning and weight if you physically spend time with the person.

I also found an image that supports my argument on a random blog.

“Society is Dead – We have retreated into the iWorld” but isn't our iWorld a more interesting realm?

In the article “Society is Dead – We have retreated into the iWorld,” Andrew Sullivan discusses the woes that exist in society because of increased Internet communication and decreased social interaction due to use of iPods, iPhones, iTunes, etc. He discusses, accurately, how we have limited our lives by only interacting and paying attention to things we approve of. He says, “Technology has given us a universe entirely for ourselves — where the serendipity of meeting a new stranger, hearing a piece of music we would never choose for ourselves or an opinion that might force us to change our mind about something are all effectively banished.” Therefore, instead of listening to an unordinary thought, idea, or song, we immediately disregard it as not being apart of our world or our image. We have no more sense of adaptation; we only ignore and remain oblivious to the new social mediums by remaining in our own social circles. Sullivan goes over the pros to being so overcome with our music in order to counter the argument in the next paragraph. He says, “What do we get from this? The awareness of more music, more often. The chance to slip away for a while from everydayness, to give our lives its own soundtrack, to still the monotony of the commute, to listen more closely and carefully to music that can lift you up and keep you going.” I am usually the one preaching this argument, but he goes on to say that by gaining this glimpse out of reality we are losing the actuality of our lives. He says that we no longer pay attention to the conversations around us, in which I would respond, yes, we mind our own business and no longer eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. He continues to argue that we no longer allow our minds to wander, but that is truly not the case. By listening to our music and by being engaged in some sort of activity, we are aimlessly thinking about something we are interested in which keeps our minds active and alert.