I DID IT!

I sent my first text message this morning at 12:03 am. The media deprivation project is OVER!

Sunday I think was harder for me despite really only being around the mass media for about six hours.

Once again I finished my 5 page paper without ANY music which is a miracle. (If I do badly on it, I’m blaming you Prof. Lopez… JK)

This is what I normally look like when I'm not doing Media Deprivation

I must admit I kind of failed with the online news. I have my homepage set to Yahoo. I was doing so well on not looking at it and going to the acceptable websites. Around 5pm my temptation became to great not to look at a story about sports.

Also it nearly KILLED me not to read the Sunday paper. I’m one of the few Americans left that will read the Sunday paper nearly cover-to-cover excluding ONLY the Real Estate section. I watched in torment as my family sifted through the newspaper.
Once again the no-use cell phone part was really hard. I just wanted to send a text….just even one text message…but I resisted the temptation not to.

I learned a lot about media deprivation this week. I learned when you have something readily available such as the Internet, the news, or a cell phone, its harder to give it up. I can promise you that five years ago, for me personally this project would have been really easy. I wasn’t really that dependent on the mass media to keep me informed, and I didn’t own a cell phone. I would dare say I could have done this project three years ago without much problem.

This project made me think about some of the people in 3rd world countries who don’t have these things. They still live life with a land-line telephone, many don’t know what the internet it, and their only news is by word-of-mouth or the local newspaper. I realized that they can live life this way because they’ve never experience the above things for a long period of time (2-3 years of consistent use).

When I look back at this project later in life, I will be thankful for it. In fact, I’ll probably have my kids try it out when they’re older. (Note: I don’t currently have any kids, and NOT expecting any anytime soon…) It’s a great project that can teach you a lot.
I know it’s already morning but once again Good night and good luck on all your finals and your classes this week.