A Day Without Electronics - Natalie Blaszak

Electronics have pretty much become a necessity for present day. Whether it be online shopping on your computer or watching TV or listening to music on your phone, electronics are used so much in our everyday lives. But what happens when you take it all away, even just for a day? During our winter break, I took a day to relieve myself of all electronics--no cell phone, no computer, no TV--and let me tell you, it wasn't that easy.

Since I was the only one in my family doing this, the first thing I observed was how heavily my family relies on electronics. I figured that I would be able to do something with my brother to pass the time, but he was either listening to music, scrolling through Instagram, or playing NHL 20 on his Xbox. He also didn't feel like going outside to throw a ball or anything because it was rainy and gross, which I can't really blame him for since I didn't want to go out in that weather either. My dad, who works primarily from home, spent his day, well, working. He works just about the entire day, with a few 5-minute breaks here and there, so I knew I couldn't really ask him to do anything. I spent a lot of my time reorganizing and cleaning my room, putting clothes that I don't wear into one pile and things I don't use or need into another pile. I usually have music playing or a show on Netflix running in the background while I clean my room, so the silence was a little odd, but still not that bad. My mom spent part of her day food shopping and then came home to drive me to practice that I had later that day. Even there I noticed how much my teammates use their phones. We have a 15 minute break in the middle of practice, where most, if not all, of the girls sit on their phones. Everyone still talks to each other, but the conversations usually stem from a memory someone has when they get a notification on their phone or see a picture they took at some event. It was still easy to talk to everyone without having my phone in front of me, but I just noticed how often they are used. When I got home from practice, it was about 10 o'clock, so I took a shower and was really tempted to peek at my phone to look through Instagram or play a game, but I resisted the urge and grabbed Stephen King's The Shining, that I had just recently gotten, from my bookshelf. I pretty much spent the rest of the day just reading and then brushed my teeth and fell asleep, finishing off the night.

From this experiment, I guess you can call it, I realized how much more time I had to just sit around. I didn't have my phone to use when I was bored or my computer to browse online stores, so I kind of just floated around the house doing anything to pass the time. Another thing I noticed, that honestly sounds kind of funny, is that I talked to people more. What I mean is that instead of sitting on my phone and maybe adding to a conversation, I did more of starting the conversation and engaging a little more. Overall, going a day without electronics was pretty hard, but also kind of nice, considering I didn't feel so attached to a small device all day. Would I do it again however? Probably not because I also realized how much I use my phone for little things like looking at the time or texting my friends, but I do recommend trying this even just for a day to see what you would do.