A day in the life with no technology

By Ericka McThenia

In a world with so many new gadgets being made everyday, we sometimes don’t even realize that we use technology constantly. I tried to go back to the old days before we had internet and MySpace and remember what life was like.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have classes from eight in the morning till five in the evening. I choose one of these days to go without technology because there would be a decreased opportunity for me to be tempted because I would spend half of my day in school.

The day started out normal enough. I had cereal for breakfast so I wouldn’t use the stove or microwave. I had to use my car to get to school, so I guess I cheated a little bit, however, I didn’t use the radio. I don’t live far from school so it wasn’t that big of a loss because I didn’t go for long without the music.

None of my professors used multi media presentations today, so I choose a good day to not use technology. I prefer lectures anyway because it forces me pay attention and take notes and learn something.

I can honestly say that not using a computer or my cell phone for the time I was at school was really no problem. I actually left my phone at home to ease the temptation since I do use my phone everyday.

After I was home, however, things got a little challenging. One of my roommates was watching the tube so I just said, “Hello,” and went to my room. Since I was not supposed to be using the computer or doing anything else that involved technology, I figured this would be a perfect time to start some reading from my texts since I’ve yet to crack one of those books open.

This lasted for about one chapter (I’ll finish my reading some other time.) I went into the kitchen to get some dinner and decided on a sandwich since that didn’t involve any technology and had some turkey and roast beef sandwiches for diner. I did not toast the bread, which is my favorite part of the sandwich. I’m a firm believer that the bread makes all the difference. I survived my less than satisfying dinner with relatively no harm.

While I was eating, my roommate who was watching TV asked what was going on and how my day was and stuff of that nature. I told her I was doing the no technology stint and she turned off the TV and started talking to me.

Our other two roommates eventually joined the conversation and thought I was crazy for trying to attempt this story. Of course, this led to a conversation of how life was before modern technology took over.

One topic led to another, like topics often do, and we soon veered to games and what people did for entertainment before the television came into existence; and because my roommates are marvelous, they decided to play a game with me so I could have some entertainment in my day which was probably supposed to be boring.

The only game we had that wasn’t DVD interactive was Mickey Mouse Monopoly. We took out the game and knew it would probably be a long one, but we played anyway. It was great. Some four hours and thousands of fake dollars later, it was past midnight and I could now officially use technology.

It was a good toss-up of whether or not I should check the MySpace and Facebook or just go on living like I had been all day. I decided to let it all wait so I set the alarm clock and headed to bed. Technology had waited 24 hours, what’s a few more?