Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Week 13, Zanna: A Media Fast

The Exercise: For one week, do not take in any media. This includes news media, social media, and entertainment.  Do not listen to the radio, iPod, or CDs; don't watch TV, films, or videos; don't read newspapers, books, or magazines (whether online or in print form); don't surf the Internet; don't check on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. 
You don't have to plug your ears if someone tells you about a news event, but do avoid being drawn into a conversation about the news.  If people insist, tell them about your unusual fast.  You may, of course, do reading that is necessary for work or school.
What to do instead?  Part of this mindfulness practice is discovering alternatives to consuming media.

As I confessed back in February, in a statement surprising absolutely no one who has ever met and/or heard of me:  Hi.  My name is Zanna, and I'm a mediaholic. This is the week that, when flipping through the book at the start of all this, I dreaded the most.  A whole week without TV.  A whole week without listening to music in the car (or anywhere else, the car is just the one that could be potentially life threatening).  A whole week without facebook!!  So, I removed my fb and Words with Friends and anything else tempting from my phone. I let my battery die on my iPod.  I shut down my netbook and put it away.
As expected, this was a good bit more difficult than any of the other things we've done so far. Happy to report it wasn't catastrophically bad, but you may notice that this is being published first thing in the morning rather than later in the day.  I'm done with it.  I want my MTV (OK, not really, MTV has sucked since they stopped playing music... and likely before that too, but I was young). 
The good things to report from the week:  I got a lot more sleep.  I went to bed around 9 most evenings.  Normally "just finish this show" or "let me check fb" keeps me up way past my bed time.  My house is clean. I took all the books off the bookshelves in the library and rearranged and dusted.  This is much easier to do when not distracted by the media... but I wished every second of it that I had music to listen to.  I didn't fall asleep on the interstate at 6:30 am on my way to work, but it was close.
The bad things to report from the week:  Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Unpleasant thought!!! AH! Don't leave me alone inside my head!! Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored.  I almost fell asleep on the interstate every commuting morning because of the lack of anything but road and wind noise  to keep me company.
The ugly truth: I really technically failed to actually "fast".  I did pretty well at avoiding facebook, and that turned out to be not as traumatic as I thought it would be.  For a variety of reasons, I needed to keep email and texting available.  I caught myself surfing a number of times.  The little side bar headlines would catch my attention and before I consciously knew what was happening, I was clicking on news stories, and then the "you might also enjoy"s.   I watched my company's news videos... which I guess are technically "necessary" to do my job... but it was mostly just to see moving pictures and hear sound.  I couldn't make my husband fast with me, so he got two levels ahead of me on Skyrim... and I watched it happen.  I didn't play, but watching was technically entertainment (though, in my defense, watching other people play video games is not really usually all that exciting, especially when they're leveling up in blacksmithing). 
The "Final Words" of the exercise in the book were: "A steady diet of negative news makes the mind ill.  Give the mind the good medicine of silence, beauty, and loving friendship"

Maybe.  But I don't know that what I was receiving was a "steady diet of negative news".  More likely a steady diet of LOLCats and George Takei musings. 

No comments:

Post a Comment