Tune

unplug to unwind

Posted on April 15, 2014 Updated on April 15, 2014

Part I.

45 minutes.

That’s the amount of time my phone has been sitting next to me, face down, untouched. Now, I don’t know if this is the exact time because I usually check my iPhone for the time. I do wear a watch everyday, but let’s be real, I look at my phone throughout the day way more than I look at my wrist. It’s a nasty habit. I often click the button on my phone when I have absolutely no need to.

That being said, over these past 45 minutes I have not been concerned with what time it is. I have not been interrupted. My attention span has actually held longer than 3 minutes because I told myself that flipping my phone over is not an option. Occasionally, I just stare at the backside of it, fighting the temptation to quickly check if I had any texts, Snapchats, phone calls, or Facebook or Twitter notifications.

And it has only been 45 minutes.

How much could I have possibly missed out on in a mere 45 minutes? Thinking about this apart from my phone leads me to the logical answer of nothing.

Then why do I feel the need to check my phone every few minutes throughout the day? I am aware of my case of FOMO, the fear of missing out, but right now I am doing what I need to do and want to do, regardless of what could be happening in everyone else’s lives.

And I am okay.

I have not lost all my friends.

I am not unhappy.

Actually, I am peacefully content.

I adore what Anil Dash said in a blog post about JOMO, the joy of missing out:

“There can be, and should be, a blissful, serene enjoyment in knowing, and celebrating, that there are folks out there having the time of their life at something that you might have loved to, but are simply skipping,” he wrote.

Let me tell you, this has been a crazy hectic last couple of weeks. I have constantly been on the go, I have an extensive to-do list I need to be completed, my room is a mess, and my future is unknown. This is the first time in a while that my mind feels at rest. It doesn’t seem to be charging in 10 different directions. I don’t feel frantic to be doing anything else than what I am in this moment. I believe I’m experiencing JOMO.

Constantly checking my phone is a habit I don’t want to support any longer. I would much rather feel this peace than the anxiousness I experience from being overconnected and “overcommunicated,” as Joshua Gross said in a blog post.

Hey, look at that. I made it to about an hour and 15 minutes! I deserve a figurative pat on the back for sacrificing that much phone time. Or maybe I am sacrificing real, precious living time whenever I get on my phone. This time of being unplugged is the true treat, not the moment I flip my phone over and slip right back into the life of the iPhone dependent.

And man, do I love dessert.

Part II.

Looking back on the semester, I really enjoyed learning about the theory of the diffusion of innovations and how that theory applied to each communication technology we talked about. I loved seeing the different timelines for the popularization of the radio, phone, television, computer, Internet, social media, etc. I also found it fascinating the similarities between the origins of the technologies, such as the military being heavily involved in the beginning uses of many of the technologies.

You have no idea how many times I bring up concepts I’ve learned in this course, news that I hear about in class, or questions that have been our blog topics. I have a much better knowledge of when and how various communication technologies came about.

The content in this class has caused me to think about the communication technologies I have used throughout my life, what I use now, and what could be the technologies of the future. My main predictions about the future: Google will take over everything (more so than they already have), Facebook will be surpassed by a new social media site, and it will become harder and harder to unplug.

Cheers!