Back to the dark ages

My 24 hours without media started on Friday at 2PM. This meant that I would go without any phone, television, radio and computer use for 24 hours. However, my fast did not start until I had fully prepared myself by telling my friends, roommate and parents that they should not get mad when I would not be picking up my phone or use the computer the next day. After a couple of minutes without media use, I was already struggling when I visited one of my friends after work and noticed that I was staring at his computer screen. In addition to my own lack of faith, my roommate was pretty much convinced that I would not be able to complete my fast. She nearly turned out to be right when she put her Facebook page in front of me to show me something right after I came home. Luckily, I noticed the 'sin' I was about to commit, and resisted.

Literally hiding from Facebook

When being home, I got bored pretty quickly. Normally I would have turned on my laptop and listened to some music, but that was no option this time. I noticed that my roommate was baking a great smelling chocolate cake, and all I could think about was 'eating that cake' as soon as it was done. Anticipating on the cake, I decided to to laundry.

A part of my laundry

After doing laundry, I decided to take a short nap and use my roommate as my alarm clock (since I could not use my traditional one). Even though she was not as exact as my real alarm clock (she was a few minutes late), I noticed that I actually prefered to be woken up by a human being, instead of some random music. I did not have the option to push any snooze button though, so I got up immediately.

My roommate and I were then waiting for about half an hour for two of our friends to show up and eat the chocolate cake with us and that half hour did not seem to end. I saw the chocolate cake dancing in front of my eyes and could just not take my eyes and mind off of it.

The delicious chocolate cake

I then decided to sit outside on the porch to read a book I brought from the Netherlands. That book is about a group of troubadours (medieval European poets and musicians) in 14th century France, and while reading, I imagined how the general population in those times probably never heard any music and poetry unless someone like a troubadour would play it for them live. During my day, I missed listening to music quite a lot.

Reading my Dutch book

When our friends finally arrived, they actually wanted to watch the TV series Friends. When I told them that they just could not do that to me on this day (playing the 'I-am-already-so-sad-without-media card'), they decided that we would just talk instead (after first joking that I should go to my room and eat cake alone (that would be evil)). We had some fun conversations, ranging from my roommate reading out loud a poem in Arabic to us planning a trip to a waterfall next week.

After eating cake, I went to see one of my friends. I had told him in advance to pick me up at 7:30PM. I also told him that I would not be using any media that day, and he figured out soon enough (when turning off the radio in his car) that it meant that he had to 'suffer' too. He sometimes left to the other room to check some baseball scores, but other than that, he had no choice but sticking with it.

Normally, we would have turned on the radio and television as background static when sitting in his kitchen, but this time it was completely quiet. While he was busy checking the food in the kitchen, I noticed the paper towels he had on the table. I grabbed a pen and accentuated the flower pattern I saw in it.

Drawing on paper towels

I do not think that I would have noticed this if I would have spent my time watching television and listening to the radio instead. It seems that media sometimes seem to keep your mind distracted and entertained instead of actually doing something with it. It seems to do your thinking for you to a certain extent. The next day, when I met up with my friend again, I noticed that I felt that the radio and television might even distract us a little from having a good conversation.

After we had dinner, we had a couple of drinks. I noticed that I heard his clock making certain sounds every fifteen minutes. While I have visited his place several times, the clock was something I had never heard before, since there would always be a radio or television on, making some kind of noise.

The clock I had actually never noticed before

While we were sitting and talking, I started to draw on a couple of sheets of paper that my friend had lying on his table. This is something I had not done for a long time, and this might have been totally accidental, but we had quite some fun with the drawings. While we could not use any media, I thought a lot about how this day is different from a 'normal' day.

Me 'contemplating' with my drawings'

I actually do not think that this day was any worse from any other day. In some ways it was different however. At night, my friend and I talked for a couple of hours, and to me it seemed that these hours that we were without media went by much slower than times I would spend with media. I did not really miss using media though and it was not like we got bored without it either. It was a very welcome break. Because of the lack of distractions, it was as if I noticed things that I normally would not notice that easily. It was full moon that night and it looked very pretty. We therefore left outside to look at the moon for a while and listened to the crickets. Since I was not allowed to take any pictures of the moon because of my fast, my friend did this for me with my camera. I do not think that the settings were right however, so unfortunately the picture did not turn out very well.

Watching the full moon

While we were looking at the moon, my roommate called me, but I could not pick up the phone of course. I actually only saw the call much later and did not pay further attention to it. When I came home, I realized that she was very sick. She had been throwing up and had no one to take care of her. I felt pretty bad about it and she told me that she had called many people and that no one actually answered her calls. It is interesting how some of us are sometimes pretty disconnected in this age in which being connected is almost required.

The rest of the night, my friend and I played some guitar and I reflected back on the troubadours and how no one probably had any copies of their work. No one illegally downloaded their songs, though I wondered if people would actually try to steal their lyrics of their poems and songs by writing them down (if they could write) while they played them. I thought about Googling this, which was about the 20th time that night I thought about Googling something. Of course I could not do that and wondered how I would get my great amount of daily questions answered if I had lived only twenty years ago.

D-minor, saddest of all keys

The next day I woke up pretty late (10:30), since I did not have any form of alarm clock to help me this time. I wanted to spend the rest of my media fast by doing something fun that did not require any media. Therefore, my friend and I decided to go to the local Humane Society and take a dog out for a walk. This is something I had never done before or even thought about, and I have to say that this was so much more rewarding than just watching television or doing something on the computer. Joe, the dog, also seemed to have had a great time.

Joe and I

This day was a great excuse to just run away from all responsibilities and to not answer any phone calls or emails. In real life however, this seems much harder to do. I am a very lazy phone user and I do not like texting back a whole lot (when I really 'have to' I usually just call instead). My friends often tell me how much they dislike it when I do not just instantly text them back, so it is as if living without media is not something that I can decide to do in isolation. Media are very social and you miss certain connections and information if you completely stay away from them. That being said, I did value my time without media a lot. It was as if my time was spent in a much more conscious, useful and intense way, without (m)any distractions. It left me with a question about the future of education. Should schools become places where young people, who are constantly distracted during their normal day (even though they might not notice this (often you do not notice something, until you step out of the situation)), be freed from all these distractions when they are in the classroom or should we somehow make the classroom a place that resembles their way of living? What do you think?