#techfreeday

What happens when you quit technology for 24 hours? No phone, no social media, no screens—just you and the real world. I took on this challenge to find out how deeply technology had embedded itself into my daily life. In this blog, I share my honest experience of disconnecting for a full day—the struggles, the surprising joys, and how it changed my relationship with time and attention.

After watching Max Stossel’s talk “We’ve Been Sneaking Into Your Brains”, I think that social media has a much bigger influence in our lives than we ever could have imagined. What I found most interesting was the fact that technology and social media are designed to catch and keep your attention, so much so that it makes it very challenging to not engage every day, if not every hour.

Having internet constantly available is convenient yes, but at the same time it can be a source of distraction or even annoyance. For example, when I am trying to do homework, almost every time I sit down my phone becomes a distraction to me in one way or another. From notifications to text messages or phone calls something is always happening in my phone’s world. I can see how leaving your phone outside of the room you are studying in can help you to be more productive and retain more information. This is something that I will be doing moving forward for sure.

I related to Emma Rathbone’s article as well having been born in the early 80’s. I grew up in that generation where we started out having little to no technology, let alone internet, and as a late teen / young adult this new world began to emerge. Growing up without internet and social media was a very different time than it is for children today. As an adult there have been times where I have not had access to my phone or internet due to forgetfulness to pay the bill or a broken device, but I feel like it only affects me to a certain degree. To not have access to a phone to make a call stands out to me and worries me more than the ability to have access to the internet or social media. Its not like I have a landline at home, or a payphone at the corner, like we once had, that I could make an emergency call with. So, to me the ability to make a phone call has been narrowed to your personal cell phone, and without it your options to do so are very limited. To not have a device with that ability, even for a short period of time can give a person some anxiety.