After the Tech-Free Challenge

It is hard to describe the Tech-Free Challenge's results, as I am not sure about them myself. I thought it was relatively easy, and yet dull at the same time. I think it fared well with my basic expectations. After completing the challenge, I do not watch any TV during it, and used no microwaves, enabling me to say I did accomplish a level 4 challenge of the year 1950. I did not think it would be as easy to accomplish the challenge as it turned out to be. TV is a luxury, but not a necessity in my mind. I think that is the main difference between the levels I took and the levels some others took, being level 5 or 6. When you get to those levels, you are not trying to accomplish ways of entertainment; you are trying more to survive. I think I can now see that even more than I did before. When you have no heat or cooked food for you, it changes all of your focuses, and you do not care so much about being bored of reading homework or a science magazine. You are focused on how you will last the night, and how you can feed yourself. If I were to do this again, I would want to plan my time, and see if I could challenge myself more, going without electricity would be both an interesting and interactive experience. I believe I can learn a lot more from that than the level 4 I took this time due to the fact that a level 6 involves a lot more information and survival skills, while trying to keep yourself from being bored in level 4 does not take as much survival skills. This knowledge and developed idea of how this relation of basic survival needs and our technologies in society are the main things I believe I learned, even without having gone on the level 6 challenge.

The amount of time we spent on these challenges was not that long in comparison to the time I would imagine it takes to get good at it. If I was to continue my challenge for another day, I would imagine I would find myself trying to find more alternatives and more ways to keep myself entertained, although I do not think it would change all that much. Now, on the other hand, if I did it for a full week, I believe I would be able to greatly increase my ability in keeping myself entertained and I think I would have by then developed my knowledge and thoughts about how I can enjoy myself the most during that time. If I did it for a month, I think at that point it would become more of a normal routine, and no longer pose as a challenge, but rather that be the way things are for my life. I think things would begin to become normal in a sense, as I develop to my new situation. Any longer than that and I think you do not develop new traits and skills, just further develop the ones you already have.

During the Tech-Free Challenge (Notes)

There were a few things I could not do during the time, and found some substitutes for them:

• Listen to music from computer while making lunch.
• I could not use the computer due to the Tech-Free Challenge, and therefor could not listen to the music I wanted to. A quick fix for this was listening to the radio instead. I think it works for short times, however, I do find the radio boring over a period of time.
• Heat up Pasta and Buffalo Wings in the microwave.
• I could not use the microwave due to the Tech-Free Challenge, and therefore was inconvenience in heating up the pasta and buffalo wings in the microwave. Instead of using the microwave, I decided to heat it up in the toaster oven (I was too lazy for the big oven). I kept the pasta from getting extremely dry, and other than that it worked fine.
  

Then there was a few activities I could not do and find no possibly substitute for them:

• Mother's request to burn a John Mayer CD she lost.

• Could not complete the action due to the limited use of a computer being required for the action. There was no usable solution due to the dependency on the technological find of digital music being a main source for our music library.
• Revise Personal Statement for homework.
• Could not complete the action due to the limited use of a computer holding the file, and a printed digital document being the standard form of the completed project. There was no solution to be able to do it that day, due to the nature of most of my paper assignments actually on digital documents (ironic sounding right? School papers now mainly digital...).
• Print out Spanish homework assignment.
• Could not complete action due to the limited factor that the file was made on a computer. Instead of printing it that day, I decided to print it the next day.
• Research on Spanish Homework
• Due to the nature of the project requiring research on a quick form, a book was not available, and a computer was required for the quick information. I could not do it that day, and so decided to do it the next day. This is likely to be the cause of the Internet's growing informational source, and the ease of its use versus the time getting a single book from the library takes.

During the Tech-Free Challenge (Timeline)

10:30 - Wake up, lay in bed.
11:00 - Eat Breakfast and talk to family.
12:00 - Lay in bed, think, then nap (that is normal).
1:30 - Read science magazine that just came in.
3:00 - Make and eat lunch (pasta and assorted things).
4:00 - Finish eating, start to zone out.
4:10 - Begin reading homework.
8:00 - Family....situation.
9:00 - Dinner
9:30 - Done with dinner. Talked with family. Ate a Popsicle!
9:50 - Clean up in room.
10:05 - Shower.
10:20 - Ice cream!
10:40 - Read in bed.
??:?? - Fell alseep.

Before the Tech-Free Challenge

For the Tech-Free Challenge I will be using levels 3-4. That means I will use only technologythey had from the years 1950 to 1975. I am hoping I can try to stay more towards the 1950s, as it seems to be a more fair challenge for me.

I am not really sure how difficult this may be. I do not see much of a challenge for these years. I believe I can easily live this way for a longer period if need be. The next level at 1900-1850 with no electricity would be difficult because I have a lot of work to do and having no electricity would make that too diffiucult to do. I would not be able to complete the work beacuse I would be focusing on getting warm rather than read a book for school.

For the challenge I chose, I will be giving up internet, computers, cellphones, DVDs, VHS, recorded shows (like a Tivo), microwaves, MP3 players, hand help video games, console video games, CDs and CD players, fast food and takeout options, and the possible no television (by the way, which was not used in the challenge once). I do not really use DCDs, VHS, CDs or video games consols that much, so giving that up will not be a real challenge to me. I don't use MP3 players or cell hpones at my house, so that also wont be any challenge. I dislike fastfood so thats not a challenge either. The things I do use are computers, internet, Tivo substitute, and television. Giving up those will be more of a challenge. I was planing on working on college work, however, that is online now and therefor I can not do much with that, if any. I also do watch TV and even more since I have given up playing video games for over 3 weeks. Givin up that will be pretty difficult. If I was into a lot of reading, this would be a lot easier, as books were invented a long time ago (or so I hear...). Given the challenges, I do not see this as a challenge for survival, but rather a challenge to fight bordome, and for those reasons I believe I will be ok.

I honestly do not see me learning much from this. Maybe I can learn to not rely on internet as the main source of information. I also may learn how to deal with bordome a lot better and in ways other than visual screens, how to prepare food fast without a microwave, and how to orginize my work not by convienence but rather by available tools for completion. by that last point I mean I will not be able to research on the internet for the day, so during that time I can only complete things that I can do without the internet and other tools which are not allowed, making the need to be able to orginize the work I have that way all that more important in order to complete anything.

The Tech-Free Challange Overview

This hybrid project-challenge is an interesting one at that. The challenge was to live without some level of technology, from the simple form of no internet to the great 1850s challenge of no electical uses at all, for a 24-48 hour period of time. In this day(s), we would try to go about our normal buisness without the technology. The project side of this was we would be creating these blogs to go along with it, and voice our opinions through them. We would blog about it before the challege, during (taking notes during the challenge, and blogging later), and after the challenge.

During this, we would learn the relationship with community and technology, as well as work on our writing skills and composition techiques. In the blogs we will make, we will talk about what it is we are giving up, what we hope to learn from the challenge, instances where we thought to use technologies, instances where we subtitiuted technologies with other methods, how it compared with our ealier opinions, thoughts about it, as well as thinking about the changes that would occure if we continued it for a greater period of time.

Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, by Neil Postman

Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

By Neil Postman

 The book in my opinoin held both valuable information and a assortment of rubish. I agree with many current worl opinon the author has, such as the situation where we "reward those who produce, cheaply and well the goods people want" (41). It does seem to be a current reflection on our world, how we are outsourcing jobs to other countries in order to get the same things done in a cheaper way, at an adequate quality. I also agree with the opinions in such things that people often feel the need to be up to date on things even if they never heard of it before, such as saying "you know I've heard something like that" (57) as a response to unknown fact or theory.  I also agree with his opinion about standardize testing and the inaccuracy and unfairness it possesses towards those who take it. I do not believe they rightfully represent people correctly.

There are many critisisms he makes about the causes and effects of technology, many of which I believe are not well supported and do not make any sense. One such example is his opinion that universities, such as a university of engineering, do not recongnize the importance of other fields. I would disagree becase I believe its more that they are focusing on a specific part, to strengthen people more in that one field, while others are being strengthened in other fields. Even a hard core engineering school often requires hummanities courses because as the ones i have visited said, they acknoledge the importance of being able to have skills in other fields as well. It is not that universities are close minded at all in my opinion.  He also used the example of timezones as a information type gone wrong, in that a timezone does not give you the true time, but a generalized innaccurate time. I would agree that the time is not 100% accurate, but I believe most people know that, and they know that the far east zone of a timezone's true time will be later in the day than the far west of a timezone. I do not think most people are that uneducated to not be able to figure that out if they tried to think about it. I also disagree wtih the notion that we are what he describes as "information processors" (111) and nature is the "information" beacuse if that was true than that means we are not part of nature unless processors are part of nature as well, however that would not make as much sense. He seems to claim truth to his own opinions while denying others it by saying it's "unevident" (112), while he uses "plane facts" (112) as his support, which of course are not well represented, if at all. There are many arguements he makes about computer technology and the rediculousness and uselessness of it, specifically talking about virtual realities. I, however, see many positive implications to virtual realities, such as the medial theropy vetrans with emotional issues from war are recieving to help them sort out the situations they went through and cure them from the issues that they prossessed. I just don't think its fair to generalize so much saying "all" of this or that is bad which is something he does many times in the book.

Why the blog?

Class: Response to Modernization: Literature
Teacher: Leah Plath
Date: Semester 1 of 09-10 School Year.

This class focuses on the relationship between community and technology by examening liturature. This begins with a discussion on the deffinition of technology. We will then examen how technology has shaped our society, and the impacts for both good and bad it has on the community. We will make inferences about our current situation and what this means for our future. Other aspects that will be examened are the values of the people, the changes those values have undergone with the deveopment of technology as well.