I failed to go 24 hours without using technology as a form of entertainment. Honestly I didn't put much effort towards completing this challenge. Not because I am attached to my cell phone, or actively follow Facebook and Twitter. Personally I have gone weeks without a phone, and don't own an Ipod. My computer is a little more important but I could go with out. The reason this task was so hard is technology is everywhere, and as a student if you don't utilize the tools that are associated with technology it is impossible to be successful. The second reason I found this challenge so hard is the way my dorm is. I have two roommates, the tv is constantly on and xbox is always running. I broke my 24 trial when I was doing homework on my desk, and found myself subconsciously chekcing facebook. For me technology is need to go about my routine. However I never want to become completely reliant on any man made gadget.

Hours Without Technology

I, unfortunately, was unable to go 24 hours without using technology. I was primed and ready, I knew I could do this. No TV, no computer, no Xbox, nothing. I went for about 14 hours or so (although that includes sleeping)… until I broke down. Two reasons why I couldn’t complete this challenge: 1) I used my iPod before class (cause music helps to wake me up), and 2) baseball playoffs are going on right now, and I needed score updates. So I failed to last 24 hours without technology. I must admit, breaking away from technology wasn’t too hard; all you really have to do is find something to do. Read a book, chill with friends, eat, etc. As long as you occupy your time and don’t find yourself around technology, it isn’t hard to separate it from life.

However, as I was living life without technology, I could see everyone around me using it, and it’s not hard to see just how much of a role technology plays in peoples’ lives. Technology helps to connect people with other people from two feet away to 200 miles away. Technology allows for people to spread ideas and find information at the touch of a button. Hell, even the college requires for technology to play some part in the student life: you need a computer and the Internet for schoolwork. Right now, as I’m typing this, I’m using a computer.

Unfortunately, technology has made life easier for people. If you need directions, you don’t need to find a map; just type in where you need to go on Google maps. Even better, this can be done on a phone, computer, iPod… basically any device. Want to see want a friend is doing? Check Facebook or text him; no need to walk over to another hall. Lives have become dependent on technology, and so stopping the use of it can be difficult, depending on how attached to it you are. For me, I use the computer a fair amount, I always use my iPod, I don’t use my phone too often (and it isn’t a fancy one either). I wouldn’t say that I need technology (besides the music on my iPod), but I certainly like using it when I can.

No Facebook, No Problem(?)

Recently, i was given the extreme challenge by Prof. Kelly to go 24 hours without logging on to Facebook or using any other forms of communication (i.e cellphone, email, twitter, etc.) At first I thought it wouldn't be that bad; the wireless back home was not at all reliable, nor was the server in high school, and I am used to being in a situation where I have absolutely no internet access (the Maine backwoods, for example.) I should be able to handle 24 hours of no mass communicating via social networking, right? Wrong. I was surprised at how tempted I was to log on and check up on whats new among my friends and family. I had become so used to it being a part of my daily routine, that it almost felt like depriving my body of a harsh drug that it became dependent on. But, by some miracle, I was able to restrain myself for the 24 long hours. Since then, I have been checking my Facebook about every 5 minutes, almost like I was making up for lost time. It is same to say that I am addicted to Facebook.

Challenge Failed, But Something Learned

In my pursuit to go twenty-four hours without technology, I find myself doing something I haven’t done in awhile, read a book for pleasure. So what to read, I wanted something thrilling, something intellectual, it took some time but I finally found it. The Zombie survival guide by Max Brooks, it has everything you need to survive the impending zombie apocalypse. So, I’ll admit it, I didn’t make it a full twenty-four hours I made it only rough two hours.

I found it nearly impossible to avoid technology for twenty-four hours, because it is everywhere. It has become a major source of information from news to movies. All in one convenient package, technology has become a ruling factor in modern society. The efficiency of using a cell phone to communicate information in a matter of seconds, compared to snail mail in writing a letter. It has increased efficiency, while creating a discontinuation of other mediums. We have become so concerned with convenience, we haven’t stop to view the negative effects. If the focus shifts to a single medium the others become irrelevant, and what we believe shifts with it. From watching the news to what celebrity news simply because we have become too lazy to get up and go outside, or read a book for god’s sake. Technology has become a great aid to society, but without filters people will blindly trust the information freely provided.

The challenge, go twenty-four hours without technology. Challenge failed, but from my failure I learned something important, the power that technology has on society. It hard to break away from it, but managing to do so creates a gap. This gap becomes a chasm due to the speed of technology, to loss connection means losing connection to the world. Technology has a hold on us, and we need to maintain that hold so we don’t lose our understanding of the modern world, while simultaneously maintaining a questioning nature.

America's Profile Picture.

Generations choose their monikers like dinosaurs chose to depart prematurely. The "Greatest" Generation isn't complaining too loudly, or ever. Likewise, Generation-X'rs are occasionally considered pioneers in the field of complaining, but rarely level their considerable talents against the appellation "Generation-X". My own generation has proved more resistant to being labelled and filed away for the judgement and tsk-tsk-tsk'ing of posterity.

Here are some duds you may remember helping along to the cultural boneyard...

Generation neXt? No, that smacks of another forgettable salvo in the Soda Wars (For the thirst of a furious teXter...Pepsi, the only beverage for a Generation neXter).

Generation Me? What? Generation Us was too hopeful?

The Net Generation? Please, unless you're referring to Dead Sea fisherman, 1992 called on a shoebox sized Nokia, it misses you. (i.e. Sandra Bullock's cutting edge techno-thriller 'The Net' cc. 1995).

Three swings, three misses. Is there a catchy little title that's on your tongue? Me too.

The Facebook Generation. 


Say it with gusto. Say it like a voodoo incantation to ward off the finer points of human interaction, because it did.

Once, young men had only foggy hypotheses of a romantic interests' hobbies and activities. Such theories would, at best, be batted around over Budweisers until, at last, a courtship strategy cobbled itself together. This isn't to say that knowing in advance that someone thinks Garfunkel was the talented one, or is from Tallahassee was a momentous paradigm shift. Not really, but it definitely dulled the blade of the occasional social-seppuku via faux-pas, and diluted the elixir of Risk.

I don't know how our generation becomes so easily drunk on the wine Facebook-exegesis. Here I am doing it, and barely noticed.. Somehow, if you use Facebook...well, okay. But if you don't, you are obviously a time travelling android whose era-briefing-chip on 21st Century culture lacked the Facebook segment. Really, have you noticed? The claim "I don't have a Facebook" is immediately given the following considerations;

1. The choice was deliberate, given the ubiquitous availability of the internet. Why?
2. Are you some sort socially stunted shut-in recluse?
3. Are you socially self-sufficient, passing evenings in Humphry-Bogart-Cool, uber-mysterious sessions of Bhagavad Gita readings and whiskey-fueled poetry jams?
4. Have you heard of Facebook?


We may have to re-think Rome Being Built In A Day. Facebook was built in a veritable day, and a generation-uniting, despot-toppling, world-linking empire inhabited its bustling blue and white avenues in just about as long. That's pretty cool.


We are, all of us, drawn into the silken harem of Muse Facebook. Fortunately, my abysmally feeble attempts to translate my consumption of 3 Cherry Cokes while also sucking down one season of Mad Men into publishable news have kept my relationship with Facebook chilly and distant. I completed this assignment by doing absolutely nothing. Vigorously.

"Technology" A Waste of TIME!

Going 24 hours without technology wasn't too different from the normal days I have. I didn’t see any problem that I had going without the use of any sort of Technology. There are some people out there that can’t live without technology. They use it a lot and from the time they get up to time they sleep they are using some sort of technology. Nonetheless I am glad that I am not one of those kinds of people who I mentioned above. I don’t use technology that much. A normal day that I have is doing college work. I got no time for Facebook, text messaging, checking emails, and etc. I use it only when I have to write papers. I sometimes check emails but not a lot. I find computers and other social media such as Facebook a waste of time and once you get on these kinds of social Medias you are pretty much wasting your time and also getting addicted it to it like using a drug. In addition there was a wallpaper about Facebook that was sending a message to the millions of people around the world especially to the youth generation and in hope of opening people’s mind by saying “Facebook wasting people’s lives since 2004” this was the message that was especially made for the youth so it could open their minds and make them not use Facebook that much. According to ABC News “Top 10 Online Distractions” were Facebook being the number 1 online distractions and along with it in the second place and third place were YouTube and Twitter. Furthermore I have seen many people even in college during a class that people use their laptops when a professor is giving a lecture. I mean come on seriously. People paid about $44,000 to study in this private college and there are some who’s parents work their butts off so their kids can study and have a degree and what does their kids do sit on their butts and use their laptops or text message when a professor is giving a lecture. Unfortunately social media is way important to these people then listening to a professor and it’s very sad to see how technology is taking over us and wasting our lives these days.

A Day without my Communication Lifelines

By Amanda Schroth

Twenty four hours without telephone, text, Facebook…something that is impossible to comprehend in our generation’s life. Something as simple as checking email, I couldn’t do it. This experiment was something I would never personally do.

It’s difficult to ignore these lines of communication, figuring I can simply unlock my phone, press an app button, and then suddenly be on Facebook in five seconds tops; I don’t even need to look at the screen. The websites and cell phones have become an invisible crutch to my daily activities.

What time is it?

Check my phone.

What’s my best friend up to?

Go to her Facebook page.

Anyone send me an email?

Head over to AoL.

It’s amazing to think what I managed to get done without stopping for two seconds to respond to a text or update my status.

At my workplace at the library, I’m allowed to check my email or go on Facebook…in other words, I can be very unproductive with the four hour time period if I’m not busy with a patron. Yesterday, at the late night shift, I picked up a book I had wanted to read but never took the time to. I was constantly being distracted by those internet and mobile connections. Without them, I managed to sit down and read the entire novel and it was worth it.

But, communicating via email or Facebook is too engrained in our society to not use it. Texting is too convenient to ignore. My brother sent me a text in the middle of the assignment, and I couldn’t respond to him until the twenty-four hours was over. Once it was done, I instantly went on Facebook to explain why I didn’t reply to his text right away. This form of communicating is natural now. I will always Facebook first, then text, and never call. That’s how our generation runs, so turning the phone and computer off and ignoring them for twenty-four hours? Extremely difficult.

We are a society of instant streaming. Waiting to speak face to face to someone is too slow now and days, and requires too much time. Facebook, email, texting—it’s all about the quick connection and fast exchange of information. We even have shorthand for typing to make sending our message that much faster.

Ironically though, these quick connections aren’t really saving us any more time. We’re simply filling up the same amount of time by communicating with multiple people instead of reading that book we’ve been dying to finish or doing the homework we were assigned for the next day. The easy access to these sources of communication distracts us, being right there in our pockets during any given time. Yes, more productive things can be done instead of checking Facebook every minute, but it has become society’s daily routine. Bored? Text a friend, check your email, go to Facebook. It’s every student’s method for starting the ten-page essay. Honestly, I can’t imagine starting any paper without that first—that’s how I started this one. And that’s how I’ll finish it too.