Disconnecting and Reconnecting
Do we really need time for ourselves? Many people all over the world question themselves if they need a break from work, daily activities, stress, and school. Mark Bittman had the same problem. He quotes in his essay to professor David Levy claiming that we need time to think, reflect, and to be successful. Mark Bittman strongly agrees with the idea that we need time to do these things because we need to relieve our souls from what might be hurting them. Mark Bittman also feels the need to “disconnect” and persistently use religious/spiritual metaphors because technology has taken every single free time that we have. It is not strange that we use our phones before going to bed, while we are eating or even while
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Technology is getting more and more advanced. It is impressive that what back in the day people would make an extra effort to study, work, or to leave a certain habit. Mark Bittman mentions “It takes different formats for different people, and you have to build up to it; you can’t run five miles if you’ve never run at all (page 3).” Everyone needs courage to fight this addiction and if we preserve, we might defeat this horrible situation. In my personal experience, I’ve always said if you want something, you must give something in return. If we want peace, we need to absent ourselves from making any bad decision. If we want to take vacations, we will need to give time and get money at work. In this case if we want to be free from this terrible addiction, we need to put apart any electronic device little by little. Although, many people think that it is not necessary to leave our phones apart to have peace, other people who have practiced different methods to find inter peace affirms that putting any technology apart had a huge impact in their lives. Even though, Mark Bittman it is not a spiritual person, he found personal peace by making time to relieve his soul. If we give ourselves some more personal space and practice the beautiful hobby of a virtual break, we will find ourselves in a better
Jenna Wortham’s “Turn Off the Phone (And the Tension)”, most definitely brings the question, “what am I doing?” to mind. This article explains Wortham’s deep opinion on electronic use, and its affects on today’s society. Wortham’s article mentions the idea of going “screenless”, which is removing yourself from your phone or any other device to reconnect with what you’ve been missing in the world. I agree that this strategy is beneficial to those that are attached to their screens. Even though going “screenless” is a work in progress for those that that are completely attached, it is a positive way to view the world in the moment instead of having to capture it for someone else to see,
Time allocation, or time management, is a trait that everyone is capable of. However, there are people who tend to manage their time better than others. People often find themselves wasting time on unimportant activities. The time wasted can depend on the type of person they are, though. Say there is a successful businessman. That man is less likely to waste his time doing something unimportant than a teenager who doesn’t have their priorities straight. In the story, ‘Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket”, Tom Benecke struggles with balancing the time spent on his work and time spent with his wife. In our generation, technology is all around us. Whether it be phones, computers, or video games, people are wasting away their lives doing activities
states how our emotions such as empathy are starting to deplete, for example, psychologist Sara Konrath and her team at the University of Michigan, found there has been a 40 percent decline in empathy among college students. Although the article discusses how we can substitute technology with solitude, it is specified as an uneasy task to break the addiction we have developed for our phones. She believes solitude is important for human thoughts to expand and grow. Sherry Turkle’s article gives the impression that we need to utilize our advanced technology as a tool rather than allow it to silence our natural emotions for those of the virtual
Time management can be defining as the ability to spend time effectively or productively to complete the goals. Unfortunately this is one of my weaknesses due to I lack of effective personal time management especially when I busy doing my work. I can spend at least 8-10 hours sitting in front of computer doing work without taking a break. I think that taking a break would waste my valuable time and reduce my productive time. But in facts, taking regular small breaks actually can help us boost energy to move further. In addition, it actually makes us more productive and also has a lot of benefits to our health.
This insight correlates with the above insight in that I often use homework, which is productive, as a distraction for homework that is more pressing. In addition to using homework as a distraction, Facebook, texting/Snapchat, and side conversations are also distractions that occur on a regular basis. I found that during the time I reserve for more important things, such as homework or spending time with others, I will absentmindedly pick up my phone and become distracted for an extended period of time. It may start with simply replying to a text message and then somehow, I end up on Facebook and its an hour later. The detracts from my flourishing because I am not longer giving my full attention to the things that matter, completing assignments which is helping me work toward my greatest good, or contributing to building my relationships, for the same reason. Something that I have done to combat this form of spiritual apathy is to delete Facebook off my phone and keep my phone on silent, unless I am anticipating a phone call. I feel like for the few short days I have been implementing these things, I already feel more present in my relationships and tasks. I complete tasks faster because I do not have several “breaks” from the habit of checking my phone, and the time that I spending with my family and friends is of greater quality because if I lead by example of keeping my phone
Because we are connected with so many people, we don’t realize that something is missing in our lives and that is solitude. In my experience, even if we get few minutes to be alone, we spend that looking at our phones and laptops. For example, in school if we are waiting outside of class for teacher to come, everyone is looking at their phones, never talking to each other or sharing knowledgeable things with each other. Not only that even if we have breaks in between the class, students just take out their phone and start staring at it till the break ends. While hanging out with friends, we spend most of time on our phones. I remember, once I lost my phone and I was feeling completely discombobulated. I felt lost and wondered what was going on in world and was feeling left out. Not only solitude but also technology has resulted in loss of face-to-face conversations. Most people think that technology has enhanced our social skills but it is not true, it has actually abated our social skills. We can say that it has led to awkwardness when we talk to each other face to face, so we just prefer talking through texts or
This was all discussed and analyzed throughout Adam Alter’s TedTalk, “Why Our Screens Make Us Less Happy”. The increase of screen time has increased so much because technology has grown and evolved so much that we implement it into our lives in every way possible because it seems to make our lives easier when really we are just becoming brainwashed. Research has been done that proves that we all spend more time on apps that make us not feel good, such as social media and games, and less time on apps that make us happy, like education or exercise. Alter claims that we get so sucked into our smartphones that we don’t take the time to enjoy the world around us due to FOMO (fear of missing out). Carr touches on this same belief and argues that technology in general is consuming our lives and causes us to not be able to think linearly and disrupts the way that we read, write, and comprehend all information.
The Internet has become such a huge part of everyone’s life; it would be hard to imagine a world without use of the net anywhere you are. A few years ago the Internet was just something I would use when I was near a computer and needed to look up some information. Then the smart phone come out, and I got my first iPhone. Now, I have use of the net all the time and I do not know what I did before I got my iPhone. It is like I am attached to it. I am constantly using my phone to check scores and get updates. When my phone goes off I feel the need to look at it, and if I do not look at it, it is all I think about.
In Dalton Conley “Cell Phone Weigh down Backpack of Self-Discovery” he writes about the usage of telephones and the social media make us less self-aware of who we are as a person because he thinks “…social wilderness has been eroded by omnipresent connectivity…” I have mixed feelings about this. While we should put down our phone every once in awhile, and just enjoy some peace, I don’t believe the cell phone itself drag us down. It’s an inanimate object; it doesn’t get up every morning slap itself on our hands as we make our way to work. Nor does it turn on by itself every time we have the urge to know what’s trending this coming fall. We make those decisions ourselves, we get up every morning not forgetting our cell phones, and we’re the ones that pick the settings of our phone, whether we want it on silent or vibrate.
As capitalism runs its course and develops new technologies, society is left to pick up the pieces and figure out where these new technologies will lead them. Ever since I learned to use the Internet as a child, I have become accustomed to seeing more and more fascinating technology developments that have changed the way I communicated as the years went by. Now that the Internet has infiltrated more aspects of human life, it has become necessary to reflect on how this critical juncture will continue to affect our society. In Digital Disconnect, Robert McChesney provides an analysis of the arguments that the celebrants and skeptics used to express their views of the Internet. McChesney then moves past these arguments to explain how the PEC plays a key role in determining the direction that the Internet is heading towards. By assessing McChesney’s views, I hope to develop my own interpretation of the Internet’s impact on society.
...lead to stress-another thing that is so common. If one chose to live simpler lifestyles and slow down their lives a bit and relax rather than overwhelming themselves with so much, maybe they would be able to enjoy their lives more. Managing time will lead to extra time to go out and create memories, and focus on living and being happy. When one departs from this world, they will think of their past and recall memories and become content with they fact that they did not let their time slip away being overwhelmed and completely trapped in the world while working their lives away to simply satisfy their materialistic needs. One will look back and remember that they lived a life of meaning, a true everlasting joy to know that they lived a great life.
Mobile phones are like chocolate: the first time you get your hands on one, you’re addicted. Our phones can do so much these days, that some people have trouble tearing themselves away long enough to reconnect with the real world. I always see phones, phones, phones everywhere; I see people with them around town, on public transport and in stores, with their eyes and fingers glued to their mobile devices. Jacqueline Leo stated that “one look at an email can rob you of 15 minutes of focus. One call on your cell phone , one tweet , and one instant message can destroy your schedule, forcing you to move meetings , or blow off really important things , like love and friendship”.He is saying how mobile phones could separate people away from each other. So I was at my cousins house last week and I was sitting on the sofa, the only thing I was doing was to pretend that I was texting one of my friends on my phone because if I put my head up I would have been staring at people with their heads down messaging people on their phone. Don’t people have their own time to text whoever they are going to
The past two decades have overwhelmed the human experience with technology, along with all its distractions. The direct relationship between the mind and the body’s ability to adjust from these distractions can be extremely difficult .Further research has shown that it has become an addiction for many. Technology has significantly improved our lives as a whole through experiences such as Global Positioning System (GPS), cell phones and social networking allowing us to communicate with different people around the world. These technologies make our daily lives easier and more efficient. However, this also discusses the effects of technology on various aspects of our everyday personal experiences both with each other and with the world around us. On the other hand technologies such as cell phones have become a problem in getting students to focus in class and distracting drivers and thus, resulting in vehicle accidents. Technology is beneficial, but can also become an inescapable distraction in our lives. It is important to view technology as having the ability to make our lives better or worse, yet also as having the ability to change our personal lives and behavioral patterns.
A few minutes into our conversation, Nadeem Aslam looks startled and asks, "Is it OK if I switch my mobile off?" He stares at it as if he's never seen one before. For the last 11 years, Aslam has lived untroubled by must-have gadgetry. "I basically removed myself from the world," he explains quietly. "My life has been so reduced. I didn't have a mobile phone until I'd finished my book and could afford one, and until there was any need. Now I am trying to engage with the world - things like e-mail and the internet. I feel like Rip Van Winkle."
Technology addiction is almost similar to drug addiction. Technology is useful in many ways. Using computer, internet, cellphone, television etc. make peoples’ life easier and comfortable. Young people are the most user of it. They cannot think of a single day without use technical device. Tara Parker-Pope is an author of books on health topics and a columnist for the New York Times. In her article , she expressed that, “The International Center for Media and the Public Agenda at the University of Maryland asked 200 students to refrain from using electronic media for a day. The reports from students after the study suggest that giving up technology cold turkey not only makes life logistically difficult, but also changes our ability to connect with others.” ( Parker-Pope, “An Ugly Toll of Technology: Inpatients”). Her point is that, for the young generation it is quite impossible to give up from becoming addict...