Does this sound easy for you? to be offline for just four hours? For me, it did, because I was convinced that during a day I don’t use my phone that much. Although that might be true, I forgot about the fact that technology is so much more than just your phone. It is doing homework on your laptop, listening to music, watching a movie and it’s is the smartwatch on your wrist. We spend so much time during our lives using technology and in a world, as it is today, Being connected is more important than ever before, but why is it so hard to spend a couple of hours without? I think this is a question worth it to try out and that’s why I decided to go offline.
But what is the best time to go offline? How am I able to ask something to someone and what if I miss an important message of someone needs me? I already started doubting, before I was even started, which made me realize already on how dependent I was of using technology.
I decided to start last Thursday from 11 am – 2 pm, which was I thought perfect because most of my time was already covert by being in class. But sadly enough I was wrong, my first try failed immediately. After my morning workout at 6 am, I got a text what time I could have lunch, I was worried that I would miss information for the upcoming event that night, and family from back home (Holland) asked if I could FaceTime in the afternoon. So, I decided to move my challenge to another day.
It was Saturday morning, when I started my second try, this time I had no choice. My boyfriend (Romack) and I were eating breakfast downtown at Cracker Barrel when I started to tell him about my experiment of going offline, but that I failed and 3 days later, I still didn’t do it. I wasn’t even finished with my story when my boyfriend stretches out his arm and commanded me to hand over my phone; “let’s start now”. I wrinkled for a second, but I agreed and hand it him my phone. From now on, it was only 3 hours and 59 minutes to go…
While driving home we made a plan for the day. A couple of minutes later I was wondering what time it was and looked at my watch, perhaps my watch buzzed and I got a message. I forgot about the fact that my Apple watch is technology too… Romack looked at me, I took it off and put into the dashboard. During the day, I became more and more aware of how much technology we have around us. It was not only the personal items that where tech, but also open spaces. for example, every door on campus is secured and can only be opened by your pass. So, technically I couldn’t even go to another building during my four hours without using technology…
Nowadays, using technology is not only for our social satisfaction, but it also a need. we need technology to make our lives safer, we use the navigation to find our destination and a lot of paperwork is transferred to be available only. But it is good to step away from it sometimes. for me, four hours offline turned out into a relaxing day, but very productive. I was able to be more in the presence of what I was doing. I finished my reading, worked out and found out that it is mostly our mind that gives us the idea that we need to be connected to the world all the time, but once we agree to be offline – even if it’s just an hour or two – you notice after you go back online, that you didn’t miss that much.
~ Daphne Nierop, DFreshWriting
Daphne Nierop 