At 11:00 am on Friday morning, I started my media fast.  Ok, so the experience wasn’t horrible or impossible, but I definitely wouldn’t do it again.

Before I started, I spent an hour and a half listening to all of my favorite songs, texting my friends, and basically using media for absolutely anything I could think of.  As I watched the time creep closer and closer to 11:00, it was almost amusing to see how attached I was to my phone and computer.  But sure enough, I closed my computer and turned off my phone, putting it in my desk.  And off I went.

I scheduled my media fast very deliberately so I didn’t have much time to focus on not having my phone.  For instance, I had Chinese class from 11:00 to 12:00 on Friday, so I wouldn’t have used my phone during that hour anyways.  I had lunch with a Feb who had visited my class and was at Midd for the day, which was awesome because I got a taste of the Class of 2017.5 and got to show off how much I know about Middlebury now.  I spent my Friday afternoon cleaning, drawing pictures, painting my nails, and writing a letter to one of my friends back home — it was actually so nice to have a few hours to myself finally.  The funniest part was that everyone on my hall knew about my media fast, so every few minutes someone would walk in and say: “How is it being Amish!?” and turn off my lights.  Their concept of “media fast” was definitely a little twisted, but it was funny to see how many people enjoyed bugging me for the fact that I couldn’t use technology.  It’s a pretty widely known fact that I cannot live without my phone.

I had crew practice later in the afternoon, which ended up being the best practice thus far because we had some team bonding and took pictures of each other with a legitimate camera.

The best part of this media fast was Friday night.  I walked around Battell for a few minutes and ended up meeting a few kids from other parts of Battell and other dorms.  If I had media, I definitely would have been in my room watching a movie to relax the night before my crew race.  I’m actually really happy that I didn’t have that distraction and decided to venture into Cook Commons (crazy Friday night, right?).  It was refreshing to have an actual conversation with people that didn’t just consist of talking about classes, what’s for dinner, or what dorm we live in.  I met a kid who lives in the town next to mine back home, which is always really exciting and makes me feel like I’m at home again.  All around a great time.

On Saturday morning, I left with the crew team for our race against UVM.  It was the first race of the season, so I was amped to be back racing again.  I got to see my friend from my team back home and her entire family, who came to watch the race.  Given how much I can’t wait to return home for fall break (12 days!), it was really nice to see all of these people that made me feel like home wasn’t so far away.

So to keep it short and sweet: the media fast was difficult, but not as hard as I thought it would be.  I didn’t find myself wishing I had my phone next to me and I didn’t seem to need it for a time filler.  I really focused on what was around me for once.  I realized just how much we use technology — pretty much every person I saw had their phone out, and almost all of my friends were texting, playing video games, or tried to show me things on their phones and computers.  No matter how much we try to get away from technology, it still surrounds us, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  The only things I really seemed to miss about my phone was being able to text my friends back home or coordinate who to eat meals with for the day.  When I turned my phone on at 11:07 am after our Saturday race, I had 25 snapchats, 29 emails, and 34 text messages.  (Note to self: do not make group texts with friends.)  It was funny to see how pointless the Snapchats were after the fact and how many people texted me saying “I HATE YOUR MEDIA FAST.”

But I’m not getting rid of my phone or computer anytime soon.