Blackout for the Purposes of This Project,

¶ … Blackout

For the purposes of this project, technological products will be those related to electronic communication and entertainment. Clearly, technology goes beyond this -- I could have cut anything with an internal combustion engine, modern medicine, non-organic foods or a host of other products. But people who lived without those things had workarounds, alternate technologies (however crude) that allowed them to function. Their worlds were not designed with those products in mind, so people without cars did not live in a world where the ability to travel dozens of miles in a day was necessary or even desirable. Thus, I wanted to cut out technology only to a level where workarounds were still possible -- analog telephones or old record and tape players -- for example. I figured that the results would be pretty dramatic nevertheless.

In general, I use a lot of technology. The smartphone is pretty much a constant. The battery is drained at the end of the day, with the amount of texting and phone calls. I also spend an hour or two on the computer. Television is another one, good for a couple of hours. I plan to cut that out as well. There are some moments where technology is not being used, but really these are fewer and farther between than one might think, unless I am at work or in class. I think that I react favorably to technology. It keeps me connected with my friends and with the world in general. I do look forward to using it, because it does provide me with entertainment and social connections. These things are important. I also use the computer for school work. I will actually have to plan ahead to make sure that I will not have any work that cannot be done on a piece of paper by hand.

Part 3: The seven days without technology were interesting. For the first morning, I liked not having the technology and didn't miss it. But, after enjoying a quite cup of coffee and buying a newspaper, it got old fast. By the end of the first day, and really for the rest of the week, I wanted to use technology, frequently. I made note of these instances and it came out to around 25 times a day that I wanted to use technology. For example, if I wanted to talk to a friend, I wanted to use technology. It seemed strange to consider using the house phone for that. If I wanted entertainment, I was sort of lost, trying to rely on the radio. I also thought that perhaps that would have worked better in summer. The better weather would have opened up some outdoors activities for me.

So it was strange for me to stop myself from using technology. It felt very strange. In all honesty, there were times that I only recorded as one instance of wanting to use technology but they were more like wanting to, stopping myself, followed by a period of not knowing what to do, and then wanting to reach for the remote or the phone two minutes later. As a result, I wanted to use technology more during the blackout period than I actually used it during the non-blackout. The weekend days were the worst. I found that I wanted my computer and television less during the blackout than my actual usage, but the smartphone significantly more.

I began to replace the technology with other activities, but there is not usually a direct replacement as such. So for example there isn't an instance where I would want the video game, say no and then go play basketball. It was more like I would want the video game, say no and then eat dinner early. The video game time might be made up later, but often the situation was not one of direct replacement (I would have eaten dinner at some point anyway) but rescheduling things. Also, some tasks took longer (like meeting friends) so there would have been fewer activities overall, again meaning there was not necessarily direct replacement but indirect replacement.

For times of direct replacement, I bought a book in advance of the project so I would have something to read. I liked the newspaper idea, but it was a pain to go buy a newspaper every day so I didn't. I thought about things more, which was one thing that I liked. I convinced my friends to meet in person more, although that was weird when they started using their phones, texting in front of me. Normally I would probably do the same thing, but I could not, so the experience was quite different. I think this reaction that they had was one of pity, because I was missing out on things that were a normal part of my life. I struggled, overall, and thought it was more stressful than I was expecting. This is because I really did not have anything to replace the technology. I finished the book, and had to go find another book to read. I thought I should do more exercise, too, and if I had to live without technology I probably would have.

My response to saying no to technology was, as noted, a general sense. I stopped tracking my feelings each time because after the first few times of noting that I found it frustrating to not use technology I mostly got frustrated at having to write this stuff down thirty times a day. I was more annoyed at having to perform intense personal psychoanalysis so often than I was at the inability to use technology.

Part 4: From this experiment, one conclusion I can make is that technology is an important aspect of my life. It is tough to live without it. Technology seems to be used for its social function and for entertainment. If all my friends were without technology, I think the social function would have been replaced, because we would all be in the same situation. But with them having phones and me not, I was sort of an outsider in that respect, and missed out on social interaction. Entertainment wise, I could probably replace technology. There are other things to do out there, and given time I would figure out what those things are and deal with it.