Reality Check

Day one is done! It was a day of no television, computer, or music. I used my cell phone one time to arrange the meeting of a long streak of losses at the basketball court. The day seemed no different than any other. I had no epiphanies answering the major questions of life. The sky has always been blue and the grass always green!

The deprivation of a computer was not one of major consequence. As long as I kept busy the urge to surf the web was practically none existent. It was in the moments of down time that this restriction was most difficult to abide by. I found that being told not to get on the internet was the biggest factor pushing me to get on the internet. I resisted.

I missed out on an entire day of daytime television. No sweat! Then the sun went down and the basketball games began along with the boxing match of the year. Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers were scheduled to play the Boston Celtics in Game 1 of the second round in the Eastern Conference. I still do not know the score. Floyd “Money” Mayweather was scheduled to chase his 41^st career win against “Sugar” Shane Mosley in the ring in Las Vegas. I hope Mayweather won.

Driving to the basketball court was tough. I wanted to get dialed in, pumped up, and ready to play. The sound of the engine and my thoughts made this difficult. No music, easily the toughest part of the day. I tuned my radio in NPR. It was Saturday, a weekend and time for music. I quickly turned it off. Driving home from the court that night was peaceful. The windows rolled down, the stars were bright, and my thoughts were long. When I finally pulled up my driveway I had totally forgotten I did not have the radio on the entire time. I enjoyed the quite when the sun and dripped below the horizon.

The phone was the easiest part of my day to drop. I hardly use it anyway. I’ve gone stretches before where I have broke a cell phone and not got it replaced for months at a time. There is some sense of freedom when a cell phone is not weighing down your pocket. Some sense of slightly returning to a primordial state of being.

One day in I wonder what a child psychologist, pediatrician, and other experts would say to the idea of keeping the media to a minimal in young children’s daily life until a certain age. In my early years there was no television in my house. My days were spent outside. I did have my first video game system until I was in 3^rd grade. Young yes, but, I was limited to thirty minutes a day. The system did not get used. To this day I have never got a new system and do not play video games.

One day in I am beginning to believe less media is better media. However, I could not give up my books. I finished one yesterday and have began another today.