Being Unplugged Essay

Last year, as a freshman at Iowa State University, I received an interesting project in my English class: record your media habits for a week and interpret and organize the data collected into a critical investigative report. The project was called Totally Wired and my classmates and I were to determine if we were addicted to our phones, laptops, TVs and other devices. If we found this to be true we were labeled totally wired and joined the growing group of people addicted to media in today’s society. My professor introduced the project by asking simple questions about the class’s media consuming habits. She asked us if any of us thought we were addicted to our phones, to which we all answered no. She asked if we thought we could live without
I feel like many people think it will be hard to unplug because there is always something that we need to know. During both times I unplugged, there were many times where I thought of a question that typically I would just Google on my handheld device and find the answer to in a matter of seconds. However, without that little answer in my pocket, I was able to challenge myself as a thinker and see if I could figure out the answer without help. We also have the desire to be connected. Without those connections people can feel lost, but does it ultimately matter if you miss your best friend’s tweet, or don’t like a cute boy’s picture on Instagram? And if it does matter, why does
In the text book, Brownell (2013) says: “You can only focus on a few stimuli at any given time. When you attend to an auditory or visual cue…it is drawn out from the background and becomes vivid. Other sounds and sights…are then perceived more dimly and remain in what listening researchers call the margin” (p. 78). So when I am selecting to focus my attention on my text messages to my best friend they are drawn out from the background and become vivid and when my mother is telling me a story at the same time, it is perceived more dimly. Recent generations are deciding that digital conversations are more vivid and are perceiving face-to-face conversations dimly. If this continues it could ultimately lead to the end of face-to-face