On a typical Saturday night in a New York City bar, it would be seemingly impossible to not spot numerous individuals on their cell phones. Some may be looking down texting, others may be having verbal communication on the phone attempting to converse over the loud music, while others may just hold it in their hand at their side for comfort. For my first media experiment I was assigned to abstain from as much technology as possible for a designated amount of time. While I had planned to lock myself in my bedroom for a couple of hours on Sunday with no access to the media, Saturday night unintentionally became my designated time for the experiment.
The night started off normal as I went out with three close friends to a bar on the lower east side, however things took a turn for the worse when I suddenly realized I had left my cell phone at home in its charger. After the initial panic had left me I decided to tough it up and spend the night without my cell phone intact. While I am not someone who is constantly obsessed with my cell phone at home or in class, when it comes to social situations my cell phone is my lifeline, my comfort. This immediately made me recall Marshall McLuhan’s quote from The Medium is the Massage, “Electric circuitry has overthrown the regime of ‘time’ and space’…Nothing can be further from the spirit of the new technology than ‘a place for everything and everything in its place.’ You can’t go home again” (16). In class we discussed how home is ever changing. Because of the connectedness of these technologies home is all of these digitized places. Well, on this Saturday night without my cell phone, or any other form of media with me (laptops don’t really work in a bar), I truly felt like I had no connection to home or the outside world.
This should not be confused with my social abilities, because I find myself to be very outgoing, especially in social situations like a bar. However, my generation has evolved in such a way that we almost do not know how to be social without the comfort of our technology by our side. At the bar I quickly felt trapped for many reasons. For one, I could not leave a friend’s side at any moment in time. Typically, the moment one of us is separated from the group we text each other asking ‘where you at?’ Something that seems completely irrational because you are all in one location and can simply just look for each other, but it is something that my generation has become accustomed to. Additionally, I also felt extremely limited to just my three friends. Although I love my close friends to death, it is very common to be texting your other friends who are not out with you on that particular night. This was obviously not a possibility for me on this night and I was confined to communication with just my friends who were physically present. Furthermore, it is also a very common habit of mine to hold my phone by my side during an uncomfortable or awkward moment. Generally when I am waiting on line for the restroom or standing at the bar waiting for a drink. Even if I have no reason to be on my phone at that instant, I pull it out and browse through it to overcome this awkward or sometimes boring moment. This is something that I did not fully realize that I did until I was waiting for a long amount of time at the bar and went to grab my phone from my pocket for no particular reason except for the fact that I was bored. Finally, on page 12 of McLuhan's book he discusses that private is no longer possible and an image of a fingerprint is visible. In class we discussed how McLuhan is implying that our usage of media leaves a fingerprint of traceability and I wholeheartedly agree after my personal experience. That was the only upside to this experiment because for once I got to experience what it was like to be untraceable in the world. No one knew where I was except for those I was with and it was a surreal feeling to have this privacy.
Although this experiment was definitely a great parallel to Marshal McLuhan’s message (or should I say massage?) and also a great social learning experience for me, it is definitely something I would not want to test out again in the future. It may be a sign of weakness on my part, but it’s how my generation has evolved and I plan to continue down my path of embracing the comforting “massage” media has offered me.
Here is a clip that definitely conveys McLuhan's theory that as long as we are attached to the media there is no privacy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfnw2qpFO38
I find it very interesting how you made the distiniction between your personality without your phone, and that it is not different from your personality with your phone. It is something that I had never really thought of, or that has been discussed in class. It seems to be that we are only supposed to think of ourselves with technology, but it was very insightful for you to point out that you don't necesarily need your phone to still continue to have your own personality.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who had similar ciricumstances in my expriement, I understand what you mean by the "trapped" feeling. I wondered if maybe it had not being without our technology had been our own decision, rather than an accident, it would have been so stressful.
I did the same sort of experiment and while I found it gratifying it and interesting at the time, I also would not really want to experience it again. Even if I am not using my cell phone at a particular time, I like that I "can" if I so choose to.
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