I did not feel immediately ready to jump into this assignment after our first class. When I heard what we had to do, I felt anxiety about it straight out of the gate. “I still need to read the articles for my news based classes - what if there’s a pop-quiz? What if something comes up in the sidebar? I need to buy books and get prepped. What if I do a blackout on social media and one of the few bands I still like announces a tour and I can’t get tickets?”
Feeling like I had to plan the blackout for the most convenient time seemed strange to me. Is the news that pervasive that I do not even realize when it is there? Well, the radio was on in the other room a day or two after. I overheard something I was not actively listening to, something to do with Brooklyn Nets signing somebody? I do not particularly care about sports; why would that information stick with me? A quick Google search shows that the trade deadline is tomorrow, February 8th. So, in that brief span of walking from the bedroom to the kitchen, I absorbed new information. It is that pervasive. This assignment would be impossible.
There was a sense of having to stave off the assignment until the last minute. “Let’s get through the first week back” became “let’s get through the weekend.” I decided to do it from Monday, starting after class at seven, up to the Wednesday before the assignment was due. Being mindful the whole time of the days when I would need news access again. I felt as though it would not be so hard once I decided to do it; I cannot put my finger on the specifics, but there was more a sense of needing to feel tethered to information for as long as I could. Once I started the blackout, I realized that checking social media had become one part habit, a way to fight off boredom, and one part muscle memory, initially tapping at the blank spaces where my apps used to be, before I moved them for this assignment.
Beyond that point, things unsurprising became more productive. I had managed to do the assigned readings for class, watch tutorials and even fold the pile of laundry I had abandoned last week. Still, the notifications are piling up. I have not been able to ignore the fact that the numbers inside those little red circles keep getting bigger. I am jittery. I am annoyed. I do not enjoy this restriction.
I woke up the past two days feeling slightly adrift, cut off from the world at large. I do not know what is going on with my friends. I do not know what is going on with Trump and that is unnerving. I suppose in some way even cursory scrolling through a barrage of posts has kept me clued into whatever is going on at any given moment and now I am missing that. My partner tried to tell me something about Mars and something about a German something, both of which I cut off. She cut herself off from telling me something else. “Did you hear? Dammit, you didn’t hear anything! Put that in your essay.”
While I thought the exchange was amusing, it is also unpleasant to know that while being "off the grid" the world goes on without me. I wanted to write an essay about how easy this assignment is, not knowing anything, not needing to know anything, not being dependent, but I cannot write that. I think this cannot be healthy, to need to be that tethered to information, instinctually reaching for apps that are not there anymore. Maybe it is not me but just a byproduct of what our society is like now. Maybe it is thinking about it critically or too much that is throwing me off; this is an assignment, not a voluntary choice. Cut yourself some slack. The closer it gets to forty-eight hours, the more I keep looking a clock. "Only two more hours to go." What about Mars? What was German? I suppose I will know soon enough.
Feeling like I had to plan the blackout for the most convenient time seemed strange to me. Is the news that pervasive that I do not even realize when it is there? Well, the radio was on in the other room a day or two after. I overheard something I was not actively listening to, something to do with Brooklyn Nets signing somebody? I do not particularly care about sports; why would that information stick with me? A quick Google search shows that the trade deadline is tomorrow, February 8th. So, in that brief span of walking from the bedroom to the kitchen, I absorbed new information. It is that pervasive. This assignment would be impossible.
There was a sense of having to stave off the assignment until the last minute. “Let’s get through the first week back” became “let’s get through the weekend.” I decided to do it from Monday, starting after class at seven, up to the Wednesday before the assignment was due. Being mindful the whole time of the days when I would need news access again. I felt as though it would not be so hard once I decided to do it; I cannot put my finger on the specifics, but there was more a sense of needing to feel tethered to information for as long as I could. Once I started the blackout, I realized that checking social media had become one part habit, a way to fight off boredom, and one part muscle memory, initially tapping at the blank spaces where my apps used to be, before I moved them for this assignment.
Beyond that point, things unsurprising became more productive. I had managed to do the assigned readings for class, watch tutorials and even fold the pile of laundry I had abandoned last week. Still, the notifications are piling up. I have not been able to ignore the fact that the numbers inside those little red circles keep getting bigger. I am jittery. I am annoyed. I do not enjoy this restriction.
I woke up the past two days feeling slightly adrift, cut off from the world at large. I do not know what is going on with my friends. I do not know what is going on with Trump and that is unnerving. I suppose in some way even cursory scrolling through a barrage of posts has kept me clued into whatever is going on at any given moment and now I am missing that. My partner tried to tell me something about Mars and something about a German something, both of which I cut off. She cut herself off from telling me something else. “Did you hear? Dammit, you didn’t hear anything! Put that in your essay.”
While I thought the exchange was amusing, it is also unpleasant to know that while being "off the grid" the world goes on without me. I wanted to write an essay about how easy this assignment is, not knowing anything, not needing to know anything, not being dependent, but I cannot write that. I think this cannot be healthy, to need to be that tethered to information, instinctually reaching for apps that are not there anymore. Maybe it is not me but just a byproduct of what our society is like now. Maybe it is thinking about it critically or too much that is throwing me off; this is an assignment, not a voluntary choice. Cut yourself some slack. The closer it gets to forty-eight hours, the more I keep looking a clock. "Only two more hours to go." What about Mars? What was German? I suppose I will know soon enough.
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