Taking the “Me” out of “Media”

This is a reflection essay about a "media fast" (which involved me not using any form of the media for a day. i.e: TV, computers, videogames, ipods, etc.) I did for my Communications course. Also, I made a considerable portion of this up.

The overwhelming conclusion I’ve garnered from my recent 24 hour media fast is that I get very bored, really easily. Aside from being my primary source of information, entertainment, and cancer-causing-radiation, the media also happens to, apparently, be the one thing keeping me from going batshit insane.

I wake up and instinctively go to my computer, only to come to the crushing realization that I can’t turn it on. After further realizing that the only things in my room I could turn on were the lights and the microwave, I decided to go back to bed. I slept for another 2 hours, until I couldn’t sleep anymore, which marked the first time in history where I tried to go back to sleep in the morning, and found myself unsuccessful. I proceeded to take the longest shower I’ve ever taken in my life (I was on pace for a record setting day), mainly because the prospect of leaving the shower and doing something substantive, like going outside, scared me. So, I just kept showering for about 45 minutes, until I started to get pruny and my bar of soap dissolved (Also, I shampooed, like, 6 times, which, turns out, is not good for your hair)

I went back to my room and tried to do one of these “Sudoku’s” everyone’s talking about. Eventually, I give up in frustration, consoling myself by saying, “I’m not good at math” (even though, apparently, “Sudoku” has nothing to do math.) I turn my attention to the blank TV screen; the clock next to it reads 11:00. The Price Is Right is on. It reminded me of the good ol’ days, where I would sit in front of the boob tube and listen to Bob Barker lecture me on neutering the pet I don’t have. I considered breaking the fast to watch the show, but then I remembered hearing something about Bob Barker not hosting it anymore because he was like 108 years old or something, and lost interest.

I knock on the doors of all my friends to see if anyone wants to go to lunch, but they’re all in class. So, instead of going to the dining hall and worrying endlessly about what people think of me for eating alone, I decide to be a resourceful, responsible citizen by making my own meal for once. Like a true bachelor, I narrow my meal choice down to either Easy Mac or Slim Jims and Potato Chips. I settle on the Easy Mac, declaring it the “least disgusting” of the two. As I turn on the microwave, a certain sense of giddiness overcomes me, knowing that this is the most technologically advanced thing I’d be doing all day. I think about where we’ve come as a species. 10,000 years ago I’d have to run to a stream, kill a fish, and cook it over a fire for a quick meal. Now, all I have to do is put water in the Easy Mac Bowl, press a button, wait 3 minutes, then mix in the powdered cheese (I mean, I don’t even have to transfer the macaroni into a bowl! It’s already in the bowl! Now, that’s what I call innovation.) When the Easy Mac is done, the sense of joy leaves me; I no longer have an excuse to use the technology I’m allowed to (Sure, I could’ve turned the light switch on and off a bunch of times, but that would’ve been pointless, also, it might’ve given me a seizure.).

At around 1, my friend John comes back from class. He challenged me to a game of Madden Football, but I had to decline due to the fast. Instead, I challenged him to a game of Connect Four. He accepted, but we never actually got to play since no-one in Smith Hall owns a copy of the game. Instead, we decided to do what normal people do when there’s nothing to watch on TV and there’s not a tremendous amount of sexual tension: have an actual conversation. Turns out, me and John don’t really have a lot in common. Our relationship pretty much hinges on having something to do together; we’re friends mostly out of convenience. When he’s bored, and I’m bored, we play videogames together, and that’s how we bond. You take the media away from our relationship, and you get an awkward conversation about ‘exactly’ how freezing it is outside (he thought it was, “freezing as balls”, I thought it was just, “freezing”) Some pundits like to argue that the media is tearing us apart, but I beg to differ, because without the media, me and John wouldn’t have to talk about the weather, and truly, that’s just a better thing for everyone.

John leaves, and my room-mate eventually comes back from class. He informs me that my mother has been calling him non-stop, worrying about where I am and why I’m not picking up my phone. I told him to tell her about the fast, but he says he already did, and that when she heard she still expressed considerable doubts about my safety. I’m not sure what bothers me more about this: the fact that I’m 18 and my mother still worries about my safety in the middle of the freakin’ day, or the fact that she left 7 messages on my voicemail in a 2 hour period, ranging from wondering where I was, to just plain assuming I was an alley somewhere, doing crack. I quickly scrambled in search of a landline phone before she could call the police and report me as a missing person. I called, told her I was fine, and she stopped worrying. She later told me she was freaked out because I always answer the phone, and when I didn’t, I guess, in her mind the only logical conclusion that I was in extreme danger (or, on crack.) This episode made me realize the extent of my technology addiction. So ingrained is technology in my life, that at this point, people legitimately think I’m in danger if I separate myself from it. My cell-phone is the one constant in my life; as sure as the sun will rise, my cell-phone will be on, and I’ll answer it. Seriously though, empires will rise and fall, species will evolve and de-evolve, and hell will freeze over, before I ever turn off my phone ever again.

Before I hung up with my mom, she suggested I go outside, and get some “fresh-air.” I shrugged off that idea as far-fetched and unreasonable, but eventually, an hour later, I got really bored and I felt like doing something adventurous. So I traveled to the land called, “Outside,” or, as I like to refer to it, “the thing I pass through to get to other places.” I walk to the park behind my dorm and sit down on the grass. There are a lot of trees in this park; I think about the people who love nature, the people who think trees are beautiful and shouldn’t be cut down. “Trees are overrated,” I think, “Do people actually legitimately just sit and look at trees? But, they don’t do anything! Like, I could see the point if they, like, moved around or sung songs or something, but, they just sit there. Why can’t trees be entertaining?” I blame my thought process in that situation entirely on the media. The media has led to my subconscious belief that everything will eventually just jump out and entertain me, and not, you know, just sit there. The media has disallowed me from thinking of a regular tree as just a tree, but rather making me think of a regular tree as a non-entertaining tree, a tree that does not sing, or dance, and is therefore boring. And even though I realize I should be appreciating trees for some kind of beauty they have, instead I still think they’re over-rated (sure, they’re pretty much the only reason there’s oxygen on Earth, but that doesn’t mean I forgive them for not being like the trees in The Lord of the Rings.)

I go back to my room, and, as I enter, I write the words, “Kill Me Now” on my whiteboard. I sit at my computer desk and stare at the blank screen on my computer’s monitor. I miss Facebook. I miss checking it constantly, finding out that Becky broke up with Mark, or that Mark broke up with Becky, or that Becky started going out with Steve to get back at Mark. I also miss updating my status to reflect how little I care about Becky, Mark, or Steve, for that matter. I think about all the news that I’m missing. It frightened me to think that in the 16 or so hours since I started the fast, our country could be in the middle of a nuclear holocaust and I wouldn’t know about it. I try to console myself by imagining all the good news that could have happened in my hiatus from media: “Maybe the Writer’s Strike ended. Maybe Rush Limbaugh got stabbed in the throat and won’t be able to talk anymore. Maybe tomorrow’s ‘Free-Everything Day’ at Target.” I decide to stop staring at my computer and thinking; it’s only getting my hopes up. If I kept up that line of thought I probably would have went to Target the next day and started taking things, unaware that it was not actually “Free-Everything Day.”

A few hours passes. I spend this time playing basketball at the Marino Center, I’m not very good. I’m thankful for not having been allowed to watch professional basketball that day, as it would’ve reminded me that it is not socially acceptable for a six foot tall gawky white guy in short-shorts to ever play basketball, especially when he doesn’t defy logic and turn out to actually be good. I go back to my room, take what I make out to be “less than a handful, but more than the recommended dosage” of Tylenol PM, and go to sleep.

I wake up the next day, and turn on my cell-phone, TV, computer, Xbox, iPod, clock radio, and my microwave (just for the hell of it.) I decide to spend the entire day reminiscing with my lost love, the media, but inevitably the reunion is cut short by responsibility and human interaction. Ultimately, it was startling for me to realize just how much I rely on the media, and how thoroughly I base my life around it. It was refreshing to learn that if I stop paying my electric bill or an EMP goes off, I may very well become a risk to society.