- 10:00 a.m. Alarm on phone
- 11:15 a.m. Tumblr app, 15 minutes
- 11:30 a.m. Instagram like posts, 5 minutes
- 1:00 p.m. Talk to parents on phone, 1 hour
- 4:00 p.m. Online reading for homework, 2.5 hours
- 4:42 p.m. Facebook check
- 4:53 p.m. Snapchat
- 5:00 p.m. Listen to music on phone, 1 hour
- 5:13 p.m. Snapchat
- 5:34 p.m. Snapchat
- 7:45 p.m. Facebook app, 3 minutes
- 8:08 p.m. Snapchat
- 8:10 p.m. Facebook app check, comment
- 8:12 p.m. Snapchat
- 8:15-9:30 p.m. music/microphone from Hypnotist performance
- 10:00 p.m. Snapchat
- 10:08 p.m. Music on laptop
- 10:15 p.m. Snapchat
- 10:18 p.m. Snapchat
- 11:40 p.m- 1:00 a.m. WiiU/Television use
- 1:50 a.m. phone call, 5 minutes
- 2:00 a.m. Netflix on laptop (which was connected to TV)
- 3:00 a.m. Snapchat
- 3:05 a.m. Tumblr app
- 3:10 a.m. Instagram app check
- 3:30 a.m- 10:00 am, phone call/skype
- 10:00 a.m. Alarm on phone
In this experiment, I opted to purely investigate how often I utilized and was exposed to technology that altered my environment in some way, ultimately affecting me in a directly personal manner. Of course, our current lifestyle has been overtaken by technology use. Daily life as we know it would not be possible without constant access to modern technology. I opted to exclude certain technologies, such as one card access to buildings and credit card usage because I wanted to focus on technology that I own and technologies that altered my present environment. This led to a documentation (predominately) of activities on my phone and computer, which enabled me to communicate with others and complete mandatory (as well as recreational) tasks.
Looking back at the data, I noticed certain patterns in my behavior, especially so when it came to phone usage. It appeared that whenever I wished to check the time, I'd become absorbed in some other application on my phone that was neither relevant nor necessary. I'd jump from one app to the next, and before I knew it I'd spent many minutes on my phone, often times in a social environment. I experimented with seeing how long I could go without checking my phone, but this was nearly impossible after a while, from all the text messages I had received throughout the day. For the sake of a more compact and concise blog, I elected to remove texts messages sent from the overall list. From my message history, however, in this time period I sent about 47 to 50 texts.
If anything, this exercise helped me realize exactly how dependent I (and many others out there) am on technology to get through the day. Most of this technology used wasn't even necessary for schoolwork, it was hugely about keeping in contact with my friends and family. I believe that being in college has forced me to use technology more, especially because here I am separated from my family. As a result, my social media usage has increased especially over my time in college. This in turn has aided in developing a habit of compulsively checking my phone, even when I know no one has replied to my attempts of contact. And I'm fairly positive I'm not the only one who does this. This experiment has been very eye-opening for me, as I have become more acutely aware of how frequently I use personal technology. This awareness has helped me to parry back needless compulsive checking of personal devices, and has garnered an overall appreciation for the age of easy access that we are privileged to live in.
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