abstinence

I was hesitant to start the assignment because I knew it was going to be simply terrible going without internet for a 24 hour period. I feel like my entire life depends on accessing the internet in one form or another. In addition, I work selling cell phones and so I am on my phone all day long and I use it to its fullest capabilities. This includes the interne use. My facebook and email get synched to my phone and so I decided that if I was to do the assignment correctly, and not “fall off the wagon”, that I was to leave my cell phone behind for a day as well. This was only to make the experiment that much more challenging.
I started my experiment in the morning and to be honest the morning hours went by pretty fast. I went to work out and then had breakfast. However, my morning routine includes reading any work emails that get sent to my phone. Those usually come around 11a.m. These emails are very important to me because they give the company employee ranking, and let you know where you stand in the company. Working for AT&T is all about sales, and that depends on how much commission you make and how big your paycheck is at the end of the month. The reason they send us these emails is to motivate us to get to the top. I check these emails religiously and want to make sure I’m at least in the top ten. My phone flashes red when I get any type of message. After breakfast I would stare at it from across the room and watch the little light go off. I also really wanted to see if my boss had sent me anything important. She is very demanding so I have to stay on top of whatever requests she sends my way. The fact that I couldn’t communicate with her or be in touch with my work made me very anxious and worried. I didn’t want to miss anything important, much less get in trouble. The time that I would normally spend on my phone checking my emails and responding I tried to spend cleaning. However I was not very efficient and I would switch from one task to another without actually getting either task accomplished. My time was not well spent.
I also tried spending more time with my roommates, but they seemed to be very into their phones and into their facebooks. My attempt to spend some time with them was not successful because all they seemed to want to do was be on their computers and cell phones text messaging.
I was then forced to resort to studying even though that was the last thing that I wanted to do. My professors always say that you can never study too much, and that is what I kept telling myself the whole afternoon that I spent with my books. My anxiousness went away and after a while I forgot that I was without the internet.
At night I went to watch a movie with my boyfriend so I was distracted and not worried about my phone flashing red. When I got home I realized that I hadn’t really talked to anyone all day and that I had no idea what was going on outside my own reality, my own world. One day without internet felt like a week. I don’t know how to stay in touch with others without using the internet. If there was enough time in the day I would go see everybody I have to see, but sadly that is not the case. Cell phones are used to speak with others but internet gives you the option of reaching the masses and in such a short period of time. In 15 minutes you can know about all your friends’ statuses, world news, your homework assignment, and job openings just to name a few. The internet is what you make of it and to me it is my entire world. It is very difficult to disconnect with something that gives you so many answers with the click of a button. Its ease and accessibility make it addicting. I did have to resort to other less self fulfilling activities in order to pass the time, thus my grade on my next test should increase exponentially.
I was excited to sleep and have it be morning so then I could be back to my phone, my computer, and back to normal life again.