My Longest Day

The twenty-four hours I spent without any electronic media was perhaps the longest day in my life. How did I get through and what did this experience teach me?

Before starting this assignment, I predicted that it would be much more difficult to accomplish then it actually was. For the first part of the day, I barely noticed the absence of my cell phone. I occasionally would look down expecting it to be there, but even then I didn’t miss it ridiculously. But as the hours passed, my self-control slowly began to wear down. I started counting down the minutes until the assignment would be over and I began to feel more and more anxious. Despite this, I still did not have an overwhelming urge cheat or give up. I am proud to say that I made it twenty four hours without any forms of electronic media.

Overall, the youth of our society feel the need to be connected with each other constantly. As stated in The Washington Post Article by Howard Gardner, “young people seem to have a compulsion to stay in touch with one another all the time.” I proved this statement to be true. As the hours passed, I began to feel increasingly disconnected from the world. For the first time in memory, I did not know what my friends were doing every second of the day, which made me feel uneasy.

In the past, there was a common view in society that electronic media decreased the amount of time that children spent with their parents. However, as newer technologies were created, the definition of family time began to change. In fact, electronic media has begun to bring families together. When my older brother and I are both home from college, it is common for my family to watch television together every night. Even my little brother, who is hardly around, joins us. Because of this assignment, I was forced to miss out on this family time, something which nearly persuaded me to give up and fail the assignment.

I admit that I never really realized how saturated today’s world is with media until I was forced to go without it. Things such as radio and movies, two things I never considered media, dominate today’s society. Without these things, it was difficult to find things to do. I have grown up in a world where video games are king and television is a way of life. Without electronic media, I turned to print media. For the first time, I read the entire newspaper, forgoing my usual morning routine of skimming through the sports section and checking the weather forecast. Because of this assignment, I can now see why newspapers are becoming a thing of the past. In his article, Gene Weingarten agrees. As he puts it “newspapers are famously dying.” Normally, I would check the news on my laptop instead of picking up an actual newspaper. Only when I was forced to go without it did I read an actual newspaper in order to get my daily news.

Without constantly having electronic media in hand, I had time to do things that I never would have made time for before. For the first time since I started attending UMBC, I was able to not only start reading a book, but finish it as well. I spent time actually talking to my older brother instead of texting my friends the entire day. Overall, I noticed a huge boost in my face-to-face communication. When my friend came over, I had much more to tell him since we had not been texting all day like we normally do. This assignment made me realize how much I am lacking this type of communication in my daily life.

In my opinion, the society in which so-called Millennials (anyone born between 1980 and 2000) have grown up is much more at fault for media dependence than personal habits themselves. According to Danna L. Walker’s article in The Washington Post, Millennials are “the first generation to link up through cell phones and instant messages. Personal computers came of age as they were born, and they grew up with the World Wide Web and e-mail, not to mention Nintendo, Game Boy, Sony PlayStation, GameCube and Xbox.” When I first got a cell phone, two hundred text messages a month were more than adequate. However, as society became more obsessed with the text messaging craze, so did I. Now I honestly cannot remember a time before I had my cell phone. I can’t even imagine how I communicated with friends on a daily basis without having instant contact via text messaging or even a phone call. During this assignment, I was only able to talk to one of my friends, and that was because he had already planned to come over to my house. I basically had to go an entire twenty-four hours without talking with my two best friends, as the only way we can communicate is through texting or instant messaging. For me, this was by far the most challenging aspect.

Some of the technologies that we were forced to go without have become essential to our everyday lives. I am not saying that video games or even radio are vital, but televisions and cell phones are. Cell phones allow people to communicate important information instantly. For example, my dad usually calls home a thousand times a day. Because of this assignment I could not answer any of these calls. What if something had happened to him and he was calling because he needed help? I had no way of knowing whether he needed something important or if he was simply calling to check up on me. Cell phones have become a vital part of today’s society and are something that everyone, even the older generation, cannot go without. Television is also essential in our daily lives. I’m not saying that entertainment or reality shows are necessary, but the news is. Many people do not have the time to read a newspaper every day. The nightly news then becomes their source of news and weather. I did not know about anything that was happening in the world until the next day when I was able to check my laptop. We may have become dependent on our cell phones and television, but this is only because they are most convenient for us.

Overall, I believe this assignment would have been much easier to accomplish had I been at school. When I am at school, electronic media is not nearly as prominent in my daily life as it is when I am at home. While at school, I rarely, if ever, watch television and much of the time spent on my laptop is used for writing papers or doing discussion board posts. The only electronic media I use with frequency is my cell phone, and even then I am not texting my friends constantly. When I’m home, I have a chance to catch up on reruns of my favorite TV shows or watch movies that my mom has rented from Netflix. Cutting that part out of my life for twenty-four hours was much more difficult than it would have been if I were still at school.

As a side note, I just want to say that I am glad we had to go without electronic media as opposed to being overly saturated with it like Gene Weingarten chose to do. As I was reading his article, I began to realize how damaging too much media can become. As Weingarten says “I am doing something that no one else likely has ever done before, something no one should ever do again.” I never thought that too much television or radio could have such effects on a person.

This assignment made clear what I had expected from the start; I am much too reliant on my cell phone, laptop and iPod. Simple things like listening to the radio in my car or checking my facebook page every morning have become almost too necessary in my daily life. Living without them made me realize that a change in my lifestyle is a must. I now realize that I waste too much precious time updating my facebook page or instant messaging my friends from home. From now on, I will make a conscious effort to reduce the amount of dependence that I have on all forms of electronic media.



Gardner, Howard “The End of Literacy? Don’t Stop Reading.” WashingtonPost.com 17 February 2008 < http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/02/15/A
R200802150298.html>

Walker, Dana “The Longest Day” WashingtonPost.com 5 August 2007 post.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080101720.html>

Weingarten, Gene “Cruel and Unusual Punishment” WashingtonPost.com 23 March 2008