Breaking Free for a Week

In a world that’s run by technology and smart phones, I have always considered myself as someone who isn’t completely addicted, but recently that started to change.  I found myself wasting hours at a time scrolling through Facebook or being on snap chat.  I knew this was a terrible habit to start an I had absolutely no plan to stop.  So when I saw that someone in the class suggested going for a week without your phone as an idea, I jumped at the chance.  I was excited to see how my daily life would be affected and the outcomes that followed.  With this personal challenge about to start I hope to find out if my phone makes me more or less social, productive, and lazy.  With these three questions needing an answer I began my week long journey.       

Day one; First Day Lost

            Thirty minutes in and I had already run into my first issue, setting my alarm.  I have always had this vintage, old hammy down alarm clock that was my dad’s.  This was the first time I’ve used it and I realized that I had absolutely no clue how too.  Keep in mind I have never had to use a real alarm clock before because I always had my phone for that.  I figured it wasn’t that hard to use but I was completely wrong.  The thing was more complicated than a Rubik’s cube.  My first instinct was to call my dad an ask him but I had no way of doing that.  After thirty minutes of frustration I finally figured it out and could go to bed.  Waking up that first day was very difficult.  My usual morning routine is to lay in bed for a few minutes while I check my email, look through snapchat, and read the news.  Not being able to do that wasn’t the hard part but having to climb, what feels like 10 feet, out of bed at 7:00 o’clock in the morning just to turn off the alarm was a tremendous challenge.  After having my phone for so long I have grown accustom to the weight in my pocket.  The first time leaving my room without it made me feel naked.  There is something about my right pocket being empty that makes me feel uncomfortable and I think it is the weirdest thing.  As the day went on I continued missing my phone.  I had nothing to do while riding the bus, no way to take pictures of notes, and I had no music to listen too.  I really started to regret my choice, but I still couldn’t help to wonder what day two would bring. 

Day two; Saturday Blues

Second day in and I already have my first answer to a question.  After a day of being a complete lazy, anti-social bum, and extremely unproductive I thought it was already safe to say that I am much less productive without my phone.  Since it was the first weekend I would spend without my phone and I had expectations of being productive and social only to do the complete opposite.  I took a nap that I’m still not sure I woke up from.  In an effort to salvage the completely unproductive day I had, I decided to go to the store to pick up some things I needed.  While driving I had the irrational fear that my car would break down and I would get stuck, not being able to call anyone.  Of course everything was all right and I decided to hit the gym after.  I had one of the worst workouts of my life.  I’m not completely sure if it was because of not having my usual music to work out to or because I was tired from not doing anything but I left after 20 minutes. 

Day three; A Revelation     

As it turns out I can be productive without my I phone.  I had a relatively productive Sunday getting my homework done and enjoying football for the first time in a while.  For the past three years I have been in multiple fantasy football leagues, with my friends, that are extremely competitive.  Every Sunday I wake up and my day becomes consumed with checking my phone every five minutes to see how my fantasy teams doing.  This would completely limit how much focus I had for other things, including enjoying the football game.  For the first time I wasn’t so completely caught up in how bad or great my team was doing and I could actually watch the game not wishing ill  against players that I was versing.

Day four; New Best Friend

 Today I realized a few things, first one is that I am on my phone during class way too much.  I actually learned while sitting in my chemistry lecture and didn’t have to teach myself later.  Secondly, I rely upon my phone for reminders on what I have to get done during the day and I am completely lost without its help.  I was 40 minutes late to my allergy appointment that I have every Monday at exactly the same time for the past 2 years.  You would think that fact alone would be enough to make me remember or that I can barely breath for the week if I don’t get my shots.  It just shows that I am extremely reliant upon the calendar and reminders I have set.  The third thing is that my computer became my new best friend.  I wasted multiple hours, doing pointless things on it both yesterday and today.  It is my only link to the internet for the next few days and if I could, I would carry it around with me for the rest of this experiment.

Day Five; Coming Out of My Shell

As day five rolled around I was becoming more accustomed to life without my phone.  Aside from the strange feeling I get when leaving, today was a good day.  I was a lot more social than normal.  I made a couple new friends and I enjoyed having a conversation while riding the bus.  I consider myself a shy person around people I don’t really know but that wasn’t the case today.  It is becoming easier dealing with not having a phone. 

Day six; A Funny Story

As it turns out I still don’t completely know how to use my alarm clock.  I woke up at what I thought was 7 o’clock, as usual, and it was still dark out. I was just too tired to comprehend what had happened but I thought nothing of it and showered.  Afterwards I checked the weather like I normally do so I know how to dress.  For some reason my weather app wasn’t loading the temperature for 7 o’clock but instead had it for 6 o’clock.  I figured something was wrong my computer and wasn’t letting me refresh it.  So I went about getting dressed, eating breakfast, and heading to class.  Once I got to class I realized that I had woken up an hour earlier because somehow I had set my clock up an hour.  Having no desire to go back to sleep and a hour to kill, I got some homework done. 

Day seven; Test Day

Out of this entire week, today was probably the most convenient to not have a cell phone.  It was nice not having any distractions coming, from my cell phone, while trying to study for my chemistry midterm.  Unfortunately, this was by far the hardest test yet and I don’t think I got a better grade on it than the other two midterms.  If I would have, I could make a connection to not using your phone and getting better grades but what was defiantly true is that not having it helps you stay focused while studying.

Conclusion

I became interested in this research topics out of my own self-interest.  I think we all have a certain level of understanding that sometimes phones help us be productive and are great while other times they can be the biggest time wasting devices possible.  I think having just finishing four years of high school, where every teacher hates cell phones are still fresh in my mind.  This made me curious as to whether or not cell phones outside of class are also terrible distractions.  An article posted by Baylor University says that cell phone addiction is increasing and becoming more popular.  Based off of their study on cellphone activity women spend 10 hours on their cell phones a day and men spend 8.  This study was done on 164 college students and is crazy to think about.  My own personal experiment reveals that I personally, don’t think that I would be more social without my phone.  I believe that I did in fact become more productive without it even though it was slow to happen at first, as I was trying to get used to not having it.  Finally, without my cell phone I am extremely less lazy.  This was by far most clear cut thing I have taken from this experiment.

Work Cited

"Cellphone Addiction Is ‘an Increasingly Realistic Possibility,’ Baylor Study of College Students Reveals." Media Communications | Baylor University. N.p., 27 Aug. 2014. Web. 22 Nov. 2016