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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (March 10, 2010)
6 the clackamas print Wednesday, March 10, 2010 Tech free brings peace of min By John Simmons The Clackamas Print A week without technology. Most students would shudder at the very thought, and few would willingly give it a try. And yet that is exactly what I willingly entered into when I decided to see if I could leave my gadgets behind for a solid week. I decided to try this experi ment because I’m often told that I use technology too much. I’m usually plugged into my iPod when I’m at home or listening to the radio when I’m driving somewhere, and I watch about 10 hours of television a week. Video games are a bigger con sumer of my time, and I hsually spend two or three hours a day playing a game on my laptop or Xbox. ’ I’m usually logged on to social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube for a good five hours a day, sometimes more. I use my laptop for everything from writing papers to playing games, and I’m currently tak ing two online classes. I would sometimes forgo a good night’s sleep in order to stay up late and play video games or chat ting with a friend on Facebook or .Skype. Overall, I’m pretty plugged in and rely on technol ogy . for entertainment, home work help and as an aid in social interaction. Here are the rules I followed: For seven days, don’t watch TV, don’t listen to your iPod or the radio, don’t use your laptop at all and don’t use the telephone (in emergencies this one could be broken, and if my work called Fd also make an exception). In preparation, I did as much of my online homework as possible and spent a few hours visiting my favorite Web sites, getting my last fix before the detox. The first day was pretty hard. I missed my laptop and the enter tainment it offered, and I missed my iPod a lot, particularly since I just got a ton of new music and games. The Olympics were on TV and my family was watch ing them in the living room, so I ended up confining myself in my room so that I wouldn’t be tempted to watch with them. As the week went on, going without my gadgets got progres sively easier to deal with. I still missed my stuff and the Internet, but I didn’t have as strong an urge to be plugged in. Not being online all the time freed up a lot of hours in the day for me, so I was actually on top of my homework for possibly the first time all term. I thought I was doing fine, and then on the fifth day of the experiment I broke down. I was doing homework in my room and my family was in the living room watching “Lost,” and I could hear that something impor tant was happening on the show. I thought I would just take a quick peak to see what was hap pening, but I ended up watching the second half of the episode. I’m not even a regular “Lost” viewer, but it proved to be much too interesting to resist. I also was not able to get all my homework completed with out using my laptop. For the first few days if I had something due for an online class I would write it out and then have a family member or friend type it up and submit it for me, but on day six I had an assignment due and no one around to turn it in for me so I had to do it myself. Aside from these two instanc es, I maintained my fast for the full seven days. Because I had so much free time I ended up read ing a lot more than I normally do, and I finished the book I had borrowed from a friend last summer and got halfway through another one. I dabble in song writing and have been going through a dry spell recently, but during the week I wrote two or three songs. The most interesting thing that happened was that I started dreaming a lot more. I normally don’t dream or at least don’t remember my dreams, but dur ing the week I had at least one dream every time I slept. I also got a lot more sleep than usual and got into a normal sleep pat tern. This week was probably the first time in four years I consistently got eight hours of sleep a night. The hardest part for me was being disconnected. In my fam ily, watching TV at night is one of our main forms of interaction, and by not allowing myself to watch with them I missed out on a lot of time with them. I was also unable to talk to any of my friends for the entire week, except for the handful I occa sionally saw at school. Overall, I’m not sure how I feel about the experience. It was freeing to not be online all the time and to really be part of the physical world around me, and I got a lot more done that week than I would have otherwise. On the other hand, I was bored for most of the week. I missed the social interaction and being able to talk to friends whenever I Illustration by Brian Steele Clacki wanted to and I felt very discon nected from what was going on in my friends’ lives and in the world at large. One thing is sure though: I. don’t regret unplugging for a week. This experiment helped show me that I could still get along just fine without my gad gets and that I didn’t need them to be entertained. Although it was an inconvenience, it was good to not be so strapped for time and to be able to just kick back and read a book, take a nap or go for a walk. I was a lot less stressed out this week than I nor mally am, and I feel I had better interactions with my family and friends than I normally do. If I had to do it again, I’d choose a time when I taking courses that requ to be online for severe a week. I would have li just not use my comput wasn’t willing to let my suffer as a result. I think everyone put down their cell pho implug their computed once in a while to take at the world around the is so much more out th the world of technology, good to experience th ty of the outdoors, th that comes with silence, adventure that comes w ing up a book and divin story. It’s good to pull b relax every now and aga Finals Schedul Class Start Day/Time M/WorM/W/F Exam Day/Time Mon. 3/15 7:45 or 8 a.m. 9 a.m. 10 or 10:15 a.m. 11 or 11:30 a.m. Noon or 12:45 p.m. 1 p.m. 2 p.m. 3 or 3:15 p.m. 4 or 5 p.m. 8-10 a.m. T/TH 7:30 or 8 a.m. 9 a.m. 10 or 10:30 a.m. 1 p.m. 2:30 or 3 p.m. 4 or 5 p.m. Conflicts Tues. 3/16 Wed. 3/17 8-10 a.m. 10 a.m. - Noon 10 a.m.-Noon Noon - 2 p.m. Noon - 2 p.m. | 2 - 4 p.m. j 4-6 p.m. J 2-4 p.m. 4-6 p.m. 8-10 a.m. 10 a.m. - Noon Noon - 2 p.m. 2-4 p.m. 4y- 6 p.m. See Instructor 1. Exams will beheld in the regular classrooms unless otherwise assigned by the instructor. 2. Evening classes starting at 6 p.m. or later will have exams at the normal meeting times during final examw 3. Classes that meet at 7 a.m. or other hours not listed may schedule the final exam during the “Conflicts” tint any other time that does not conflict with the regular exam schedule. 4. Saturday classes will hold final exams on the last Saturday of their scheduled meeting time and in their roo 5. Final exams take place in the last week of each term. You must take finals at the scheduled time; exceptions will be made only for illness or other circumstances that must be approved by your instructor before the scheq uled exam time.
