It has been twenty-nine hours, thirty-one minutes, and twenty-six seconds since I last came in contact with technology. My eyes appear well rested; my mind is clear; and the merciless sensation to shop at Wal-Mart has somewhat dissipated during my time unplugged from the world.
In M. T. Anderson’s novel “Feed” characters are subjected to a never-ending battery of advertisements and information that almost forcibly injects relative data directly into their brains without much thought or impetus. This is something we can all relate to as we walk down the Church Street Marketplace or enter a shopping mall. “When we got off the ship, our feeds were going fugue with all the banners…I was trying to talk to Link, but I couldn’t because I was getting bannered so hard…The whole time was like that (Anderson, 8).”
During my time unplugged I couldn’t help but notice that despite my seeming disconnect from the technical world surrounding me, I was still subject to it no matter how far or how long I remained unplugged. I shut off my cell phone and the messages just piled up (much to my girlfriends dismay); I walked to the lake to play my guitar and watch the sunset but on the way I was bombarded with advertisements and technology in the form of radio programs, people on the street talking about the new shoes they just bought, and even looking down on my person I found constant reminders of this “feed” we cannot escape. Things such as my shoes, my shirt, and even my guitar seemed to scream at me like it was some subliminal plot by advertisers to remind me that no matter how hard I tried I would never truly escape the modern world and its trappings.
My girlfriend thought the whole idea was ridiculous. “Why shut off your cell phone- what if someone needed to call you,” she said with anger on her lips. To which I replied, “I was supposed to shut off or distance myself from everything technological for a day so I couldn’t get to my cell phone.” To which she replied, “Well you could have at least checked you e-mail!” That’s when I decided to end the conversation.
The time I spent unplugged from the world was a real eye opener for me personally not because I have a deep seeded connection to modern technology but rather because I personally try not to. I don’t care too much if I forget my cell phone or don’t check my e-mail for a few days so I never really felt like I had a strong connection or need for those technologies. However, when I purposely tried to distance myself from them I couldn’t help but realize that they were attaching themselves to me. Even if I wanted to I could never entirely shut off from the world so in a way I felt almost like Titus and his gang of friends in M. T. Andersons book. I began to realize that there is indeed a “feed” plugging us all in to this intangible network of technologies and advertisements and throughout this course I intend to find out how strong that connection is and what I can do to stop it.
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