September 8, 2012, Doomsday as also known as “ A Day Without Media”. A Day Without Media was first conducted as an experiment by an undergraduate class at University of Maryland but was duplicated by myself for the doomsday experience. By way of this challenge I learned different variables such as my media consumption habits, my most used sources, what were the psychological effects, and the difficulty of finding activities to consume the time I use for social media. This experience was nothing nice, especially for someone whose phone is their world.
Media is a way of life. I learned from my personal experience that I eat, sleep and breathe media. This challenge was extremely hard to complete being that all my sources and connections to the outside world were taken from me. Most of my media use comes from my phone. I am always involved in social media such as Instagram, Twitter and sometimes even Facebook. Then while in engaged in these features I am in tune with my music application. I love music. It’s my personal getaway, a home away from home. If my phone is not in use then it’s my computer. It’s always something to do on the computer, whether I’m surfing the web, online shopping, movie streaming, or even catching up on my latest shows. My computer is my backup generator. Without media I am lifeless, and this assignment almost brought me to my death.
Being that all active media was not an option during a whole twenty-four hour period I had to find different activities to take part in. Instead of being active in media I found myself swimming, going to the gym, sleeping, and even hanging around campus. The temptation of picking up my phone or checking my email was real hard to resist especially when I would receive alerts and notifications letting me know I had a message waiting or someone liked one of my pictures on instagram. Finding something to do was extremely difficult due to the fact that my social circle is very limited and most of my time is spent alone with top five media picks.
Doomsday really took a toll on me psychologically. I felt as though someone was punishing me in a very cruel way. It reminded me of the time my mother would take away all electronics to discipline me for doing something wrong. Luckily it only lasted a couple days, because my mom would forget I was on punishment by then. Media is really my secret infatuation, my personal craving, an itch that needs to be scratched.
Media use is a real life addiction. I felt as though a piece of me was missing. We as Americans don’t realize how addicting the use of media is. Our lives revolve around media, whether is waking up and reading the morning paper, listening to the radio for latest traffic update , even coming home from a long day of work to crash on the couch and flip on the five o’clock news. Media is no longer a want but a have to
