The wireless chalenge

Technology is part of our daylife, whoever we are; and of course, a life apart from the devices which make our life easier is mentally unbearable. As part of the Amish challenge I decided to give up internet, that means no Wi-Fi connection on my electronic devices. Maybe some might drive crazy trying it, but my impression after the couple of days I took internet out of my life was satisfactory. By the end I noticed that the main use for that tool is searching for academic information, so Facebook, mail,etc. resulted on a way of spending time that will be valuable for other activities in the'real life'. It is a fact that you may not know things happening with your friends, or even you will not be aware of things happening around the wor,but is it really more important to know what happens to the world instead of knowing what is happening to your self? For me it wasn't dificult to give up internet, I was completely stunning to realize how many things, being before us, we ignore to not being ignored by technology.

My Amish Challenge

When I read about the Amish challenge we had to do, first of all I thought: what technology could I leave for a while? I don't have a smartphone, or an iPod, iPad, a MP3 player or a cute celular phone.
I didn't spent too much time on internet, or checking out facebook or twitter... So I decided to give up my PC game Minecraft. And I suffered a lot.

The first day, I was thinking "ok, now I have more time to do my homework, my school projects or anything else I need", and I did. I remember that I finished all the things I had to do, and then I discovered that I was anxious, like when you know that you shouldn't do something, but you really want to do it. I wanted to play Minecraft.

I dreamed about that game, or me playing the game, and when I woke up in the morning of the second day I was decided to end with the challenge or change it for another thing, but that was the main reason I didn't give up.

The final days of the challenge I find other ways to entertain myself: things like studying my notes, listening to music, even reading my old comics or watching videos in my computer; talking more with my sister or with my friends.
I really felt free and more enthusiastic about life.

I think that this challenge helped us to see that we're free to choose if we become slaves of technology, or we learn how to use it without abusing.

My Facebook fast

Well, I "fasted" from Facebook for three days. I chose Facebook because I've found it to be the most immediate and wide-reaching way of keeping in touch with the greatest number of people around the world, including my family and friends in Australia. In my (ahem) 42 years of life I currently have 766 friends. I think it is too many ...

I have struggled with taking a looooong time to "check" Facebook during the day as so many people post so many things. I've managed to block a lot of silly updates like "Joe Bloggs changed his profile picture" and "Mary Jane invited you to play Diamond Pet-ville" by using F.B. Purity, and by limiting status updates of everyone to "only important" so that I don't get 58 pictures of kittens every day. But it still takes a long time to check things and I feel a certain anxiety that something important will happen and I won't know about it. This is why I decided to give up Facebook.

I don't have any funny stories of singing along to Jose Jose or listening to other people's weird conversations during my fast, but I must say that for all my thinking that I didn't have enough time to do everything I need to do in these days, I managed to concentrate more on my work and get things done faster. I realised too that the world goes on, and important things have other ways of being communicated.

I also realised, after reading the Amish article, that the telephone does tend to make us jump to attention over anything else happening. I had some important people round to lunch a few days ago and we were just about to sit down to eat, when the phone rang. Everyone looked at me to see if I'd answer it. I was tempted to, but decided that it was for this specific purpose that we'd bought a phone with an answering machine. If it was important, they'd leave a message. And we enjoyed a lovely hot lunch with our guests.

I think it was a useful experiment and a way of measuring whether the technology we use is a tool in our hands, or if we have become tools of it. It helps us realise that we can decide the limits that we place on the technology we use, and that there are other things that we can do in life that perhaps we'd forgotten about. If everyone did this, perhaps we would, in a way, "wake up" from our technology-induced dream while sitting on a bus or in the subway and see people, listen to them, and even begin caring more for them.

The Amish challenge

In this challenge, as all my classmates, I gave up one technological artifact that I am used to use it. At the beginning, I did not know which thing I was going to give up because I do not use too much my cellphone or Facebook. I usually use them only for school purposes, nothing else. But after I think a little more, I realized that I listen to music all day, and sometimes at night.

In my case thus, I chose not to listen music wearing headphones, and maybe for some people it does not seem too much, but for me was quite difficult because I enjoy too much listening to music while I am doing my homework, studying for some class or only because I am bored. In fact, the music that I listen change my mood. So, this is why I gave this up, because, in some way, I was depending a lot on that.

During the three days of the challenge, I decided to hide my headphones to prevent myself of using them. I was a little uncomfortable during the day, and I started to hear the conversation from other people. No one can imagine what kind of conversations you can hear. Some of them were very interesting, but also sometimes you can hear very strange stories.

At the end, I realized I can live without listening to music with my headphone which is a great relief because it shows me I do not need many things that sometimes I think I could not live without, and I think this is the moral. Many things are not essential to live, humanity lived without them for many years and they survived quite well.

From heaven to hell... The Amish challenge

Everything I do in my life, big or small, is accompanied by a song. It's like the soundtrack of your life; you can remember a moment or a person when you hear certain songs. So, as you can imagine, music is an important part of me and it is always present in everything I do. That is why I decided to give up to music; specifically my iPod’s music (because it is the gadget I use the most). Before I started with the challenge, I thought that it was going to be pretty hard for me to do it; and actually, it was harder than I thought.  

The hardest day was Monday; because, well… it was Monday! And you just want to go through that day as quickly as possible. I had the impression that doing things without music makes you feel that everything happens very slowly, and the world is a really quiet place. A friend told me that there are some things that shouldn’t be fast and I agree with him, but I meant to tell that music can make trivial things turn into memorable ones (i. e. Mondays).  

Something good out of all this was that I could listen to music I hadn’t heard in a long time. In my lab, we were working while we listened to Jose Jose and it was hilarious; because my friends and I were singing along "El triste" and we had a great time acting while we sang (imagine the dumbest but saddest scene in the whole world, oh I’m kidding, it was just dumb!).  

In my perspective, listening to music could help you to get rid of the stress; it can be the perfect excuse to start a conversation, or even put words to your thoughts. The negative thing about listening to music could be that if you listen to it with your headphones, and you are in a face-to-face situation; it is going to be rude not to talk with the person in front of you. To me, this Nietzsche’s quote summarizes my notion about music: “Without music, life would be a mistake” (I hope not to sound very radical).  

My experiment with the Amish Challenge

When Shelly first told us about the Amish challenge, I started thinking “what should I give up?”. I’m pretty use to technology, so I wasn’t sure what would be the best. At my home I’m almost always in the Internet, so I think about giving up that, but now I’m studying online so to give up Internet would not do. Outside I’m always hearing music, that was why I thought about giving that up, but to be honest I have had try before to give up that and I can barely concentrate in what I’m doing if I don’t hear music, so that would be a problem if I wanted to do my works and readings. After thinking a lot it came to my head an idea, “recently I have been using Facebook a lot.

I started to use Facebook two years ago, when a teacher force me to for some activities for the class. Even so I didn’t really used it. But last year I meet a lot of japanese friends and it was much more easier to talk to them by Facebook, so I started to check it on daily basis. And when I realize it I was a little surprised. For that reason I decided to do the Amish challenge as an experiment. Have I become addicted or dependant of Facebook? I must find out.

I started the challenge on Sunday when my cell phone waked me up because someone in Facebook had send me a request or something like that. I was about to open the notification when I thought “Wait! It is Sunday”, so I just take the message out  of my screen. Because my cell phone is synchronized with Facebook, my mail, and some other things, every time a friend posted something and mentioned me or sended me a message or things like that my cell phone started ringing and I was thinking “Please, don’t be Facebook again”. Whenever it was I just deleted the notification.

After that I used the computer and it was all right, but when I opened a new flange in the google chrome and it showed my most frequented sites and I saw the small window of Facebook I felt the curiosity of opening up the page. But after I opened another page and started doing another thing I immediately forgot about it.

In fact the three days were just like that. Whenever my cell phone announced me that I had something on Facebook or I saw the window on internet I had curiosity of open it but with just looking away I easily forget about it.

At the end the conclusion which I made about me and Facebook was that I am a curious person that like to know what happen in the moment and thats why I use Facebook a lot but it is not necessary for me and I can easily ignore it. So -happily- I am not (at least yet) addicted to Facebook.

The "Amish Challenge" experience

I decided to give up Facebook for three days. I could notice two main things that happened during those three days. The first one is that for the first time, I was aware of the importance that Facebook groups had acquired in academic life. Every day (and even twice  day) I had to text my classmates in order to know whether we had something else for homework and almost every time there was: the teacher had posted a news report that we had to analize or the deadline for a homework had changed. Even she had got used to the facto of being capable to publish at any hour some new information because she was sure that at least one or two of us would see it.
On the brighter side, I have to admit that quiting Facebook for a few days really gave me time to do other things for which I used to say "I didn't have time for" such as reading, watching movies and finishing my homework earlier.
After the challenge, I still use Facebook a lot, without a doubt it offers lots of advantages, the thing is to learn to use it wisely, without getting addicted to it.

My experience with Amish challenge

Well, I gave up facebook because I noticed it was almost an habit for me to check my facebook everyday, I mean every night.

I did use facebook a lot this summer because I met new friends from the US and we used facebook to contact each other and make jokes. Now, they're not here and they are busy, in their own business, so then we don't have the same contact as before. But I am still using facebook to know about my friends and so on.

I have been spending a lot of time  on facebook instead of accomplishing my homework or just doing something else like reading or doing excercise.

The challenge was good for me because it showed me that using Facebook is not the only way I have to enjoy my free time.

Actually, I want to continue doing this normally to get a new balance in my free time. I'm still using Facebook but just a few minutes if I see I don't have to much to do there.

I consider a good decision to stop using Facebook on weekends or maybe just on Saturdays, and take the challenge of finding new activities.

Acquired Needs

Acquired Needs

All life is full of acquired needs, these kinds of needs are unnecessary to the normal life and frequently develop huge dependencies. For example many people do not walk enough due to the development of the transport means and also to the facilities that that generates. Technology is a great ally and enemy at the same time, all depends on how it can be used and how it can change your life.

Facebook has been a hit in almost all the population of the world, how has it affected the life of all these people? is a question that will never have an answer. Facebook has came to cut distances or maybe join some ways that were lost with people, and in this fast capitalist life helps to keep in touch with some important people and several advantages can be said about Facebook. However, Facebook has affected in several bad way people´s life too, it is well known that average people spend 12 hours per day in basic needs as sleep, eat and hygienic habits. Average Facebook`s users spend an hour of the another half of the day checking Facebook and this activity is often done during workday,   and this has come to decrees productivity around the world.

Facebook could be a great tool for some people but for me some times is a sickness; I can not kill the sensation of guiltiness and anxiety when I use it. But some times is necessary to keep in touch with some people. Then I saw my options, first I thought to close facebook but I realized to avoid  it, is not a real solution then I decided use it only as a communication mean and let back pictures, friends stories, games and give up the mind is a greater challenge. 

Life without Facebook

I stopped to look at Facebook only for three days I thought that this challenge was being easier but I was wrong.  I usually check my facebook before to sleep only for two or five minutes. However, I spent one hour when one of my friends is connected and we started chatting. For that reason, the Amish challenge was difficult for me only at night.

The first day, I arrived at home almost 7 pm and I turned one my computer (I always do that) and watched a one episode of ‘community’. Suddenly I was opening Facebook and I reminded the English class and I closed the website but I felt curiosity for seeing who was connected so I returned to watched videos in youtube.

The second day was easier because I had been out of my home since morning and I arrive too late so I felt so tired that I slept quickly. And the last day, I didn’t have many problems because I was in school but that night I wanted to check facebook and see what happened with the world and chat whit somebody but I decided reading a book and then I slept.

This challenge show me that I am depending of facebook even when I don’t spend a lot of time checking the life of the other friends or just chatting with them.  But I felt anxious only at nights. 

My Amish Challenge

I give up with facebook, my favorite social network. On Saturday it was very hard because i used to be online and chat with some friends that i don't see frequently, also I like to visit the profiles of some friends just to have news about their lifes, i know it's embarrasing but it's true, so I was very anxious for take a look in the latest news.
I decided to clear my mind and focus on my schoolwork and at the end of the day I finished all my tasks in less time and it was incredible.

In conclusion, I reflected about which things are really important in our lifes and it is clear that technology makes our lifes easier but at the same time it affects the way we interact with other people because it is easier to start a conversation online instead of be brave and face it in person, when we have this chance.

How to live without calling?

The communication is something very important nowadays, sometimes we know about others by mail, sms, whats app, facebook etc....and some of us still use the phone in order to get in touch with others, that's why I decided to leave the phone for a few days. At the begining I believed that it could be hard but I realized that I don't use the phone as much as I believed, in fact I noticed that  now I used others ways to get in touch with people for example replacing phone calls for facebook or sms.

Analizing the situation I noted that I just use the phone for formal issues like asking for a product in the lab or asking for some file. This activity reminded me the old times when I was in junior high school and high school when  I used to use the phone a lot to asked for homeworks or just to talk with my friends but now I have to adapt to the new communication less personal and more superficial. 

What's a smartphone whithout an Internet conection?

I have a Nokia 603 cell phone since last year. It lets me access to the Internet by TELCEL service (if it’s hopefully available) or by Wi-Fi at my home or at CU Campus. The main things that I do with my gadget is chatting in Whatsapp, checking my email accounts and reading Facebook’s and Twitter’s newsfeeds. For three days I couldn’t do that. My version of the Amish Challenge was not to get into the Internet with my cell phone.

First, I wrote a warning on Whatsapp to my contacts: “No Internet until Tuesday at 19:00hrs”. I had to look for information on the Internet about my thesis topic, so I needed to open my “huge” laptop to surf some hours. Call me lazy, but it's really big and heavy.

On Monday, I noticed that I didn’t miss chatting in Whatsapp. However, I thought maybe some friends would have tried to chat with me. “If it is urgent, they will call me”; that was how I didn’t feel like an inconsiderate fellow. Up to this time, the situation was all right.

The crisis came on Tuesday. By that morning, I hadn’t finished my process analysis and I had my play rehearsal at 11:00hrs. So, I saved the Word file on my phone and continued writing on the way to Azcapotzalco. Everything seemed to be fine. When I arrived to the cybercafe at 15:30hrs, I remembered that I didn’t have a USB cable to transfer my document, nor I couldn’t send it by the email app of my phone. So, I had to copy my process analysis again on a new file at a PC.

After the challenge had ended, I opened my Internet connection and received three new conversations on Whatsapp. “Was my status not clear?! I don’t play with such things.”, I thought. In fact, I believe that my contacts rarely notice my status. If I am “busy”, they just don’t care about it.

Not considering those events, I could solve my life essentially. It wasn’t a hard experience, but  I have to accept that I'm really accustomed to mobile web access.

A smartphone without Internet connection it’s an expensive item which is being wasted. Although some apps don’t need data loading, the special communication functions of the gadget cannot be used without the possibility of accessing the web. It is not necessary to have a cell phone with a processor inside, but the truth is that it is very useful to afford some money when chatting, and to avoid the fatigue when you want to check your social networks and other virtual sites.

Using technology to get in touch easily with each other is not a bad thing. What’s pitiful is the gradual avoidance of face-to-face interaction as a common way of communication. Nowadays, adult people are always busy, tired and worried about their family and their own safety. Everybody has just some free ours to eat, sleep and have some entertainment. That’s one of the reasons about using smartphones: these gadgets allow us to be close to our friends in socio-economic circumstances that take us apart from them. We shouldn’t let just the emoticons express how happy we are when we see somebody, if we still can show a big smile in person.

The Amish challenge

I try to give up FB. The last Sunday my day was perfectly normal without FB, because, I'm not   addict to  FB,  so  I had been doing   many  things like washed my clothes, took breakfast with my family, went to movies, etc. , but,  at night a little bit of anxiety  started to attacks my mind, the reason was related with the marathon of Mexico city, I very interesting in read about how was going  to  one friend and the only form to entered was in FB, so… at 12:00 am,  I didn’t think in other thing and I turn on  my computer  and… I read about marathon and said congratulations to my friend.

Since 2 years my mind has been changing about the use of this technology, before this, I was spending in my computer every night approximately 5 hours, Nowadays only in specific situations (eg  Marathon) I couldn´t stay without FB or technology like this.  I think many people needs this technology, because, it’s a manner to keep out the stress of their minds, but in some situations this kind of technologies absorve their minds and people start to depend to check every moment their cell phones or computers, and that it is not nice to people who likes talk face to face!