Unplugged: Deactivating My Brain
Dec 9th
Technology Diet
No TV. No Facebook. No Texting. Can anyone imagine such a world?
This became reality for 26 students at the University of Central Florida. Last year their English professor, Mary Ann Murdoch, challenged her students to unplug and live a technology-free life for five days.
Only two of 26 students in Murdoch’s class were able to relinquish cell phones, iPods, portable CD players, text messaging, e-mail, computers, TVs, DVDs, and video games.
I crafted a similar technology-free experiment for myself. No texting. No web surfing. No social networks. No iPods, CD’s, TV, video games or personal e-mails. Just my phone for basic calls and my laptop for emergency school-related email and Microsoft Office programs. For one week.
Tech Diaries
Sunday Night 11:45pm –
The experiment was set to start at midnight. Before I unplugged from my comforting world of chargers and wires, I posted a disclaimer on all my social media profiles stating: Doing a social experiment for a class which involves me giving up most technology for a week. If you wanna talk to me, call me or stop by my place! Starts tonight at midnight! Bets on if I can do it?
Crackberries and iPhonohalics: A Generation Addicted to Smartphones
Nov 24th
Has your smartphone done this to you?
Good morning, mobile-me
It’s 9 a.m. and NYU journalism student Devin Chanda rolls over to grab his Blackberry after three hours of sleep. He’s writing a concert review for Clutch, a rap magazine, so he opens up the phone’s built-in memo pad and quickly taps out a review of last night’s—good music, flowing lyrics, free booze. Still on his phone, he attaches the pictures his photographer sent him at 6 a.m., sends an email to his editor, and goes back to sleep.
“Without my Blackberry, I would be completely lost,” he said. “Communication is the most important thing. I have to stay connected all the time.”
Chanda, whose phone never leaves his side, reflects the rising Smartphone culture among generation Y. With the Blackberry and the iPhone, this “anytime, anywhere” access has become a mantra by which gen Y lives. Not only does it ensure that every text and email goes through, but it also offers applications that lets users read the news on the go, log on to AIM in class, and calculate a tip at the end of dinner. This obsession with Smartphones has prompted criticism that begs the question: Is Gen Y too dependent on technology?
The Electronic Umbilical Cord: A New Way to Keep In Touch
Oct 27th
Constant text messaging keeps Gen Y and their parents connected
“Straight to boogie and tequila.”
Farrah Aldjufrie, a senior at the University of Southern California, received that text message last week from her father who lives in Bali.
“He speaks broken English because he’s Indonesian,” Aldjufrie says. “He was asking me about my birthday, and I told him I was going out with some friends. That was his response.”
Aldjufrie, like many in Generation Y, constantly contacts her parents through text messaging, about five times a day to her mom, and every other day to her dad.
“It’s the easiest way to keep in contact with my dad because he lives so far away. I can send him a text message, and if it’s really late on his time, he can write me back when he gets up,” she says.