Don’t Stop At Your Television – Throw Away Your Whole Tech Life
By Guest Author • Dec 6th, 2008 at 6:07 pm • Category: Philosophy| Hot: |  |  | | | |
Here’s a little social experiment: Erase your MySpace page. Go ahead, you’re going to have to trust me on this one. And while you’re at it get rid of your Facebook page as well. Right now, I’ll wait. Also delete your LinkedIn profile and take yourself off of Match.com, Friendster, and Classmates.com. Peekyou, Flickr, and Twitter – all gone. Next, walk over to your window, open it up, remove the screen and collect the following items: PS3, XBox, Game Cube, etc. Toss ‘em right out that sucker. Cell phone? iPhone? Google phone? Yup, toss those out the window too. Just for good measure, if you are one of the last few still harboring a landline, might as well detatch that. And finally – this one is going to hurt – haul that television over to the window and let that big guy fly. That’s right, no more cable, no more HBO, no nothing.
DISCLAIMER: RKNet Blog is not responsible for any lost or damaged items resulting from this experiment, or injuries resulting from falling personal items.
So at this point you may be wondering what the purpose of all this is. I assume most of you readers wondered this before you removed your self from all connections between you and your friends, family, and business associates and threw thousands of dollars worth of electronics to the streets below. Well, the reason for this experiment is twofold. First, if I see one more commercial with that smarmy, coy douche bag, Dan Hesse I am going to devote the rest of my life to Durden-esque system-fighting. And two, the everyday life of too many Americans has become so crammed full of distractions that the important things in life are now self-obsessed, masturbatory (side note: “masturbatory” has actually been proven to be the funniest word in the English language, so go ahead and chuckle despite the seriousness of this topic) functions solely aimed at attention whoring or money grubbing.
Certainly one could blame poor parenting for creating generations of fickle minds and self-centeredness, but that’s a whole different conversation with sociological implications I am not currently prepared to address. What I do know however, is that I have watched plenty of television and felt the depraving addiction to lame TV programs. I have participated in social networks and felt the emptiness of wondering what strangers think of me. I have texted people for no reason, drunk dialed, and entertained other desperate attempts at pointless neediness.
“Hey, wait just a second,” you readers may be protesting at this point, “if you have detached yourself from social networks, communications devices and other mind-numbing electronics, what are you doing writing for a blog??” Very good question, dear reader. The unfortunate truth is I cannot do all of these things. (I tried by abandoning television and video games, which was a big step but ultimately trivial when compared to the lot of things I could not remove from my daily life. I also rationalized that ignoring people’s calls was like not having a cell phone, but it’s not.) This is why I need you all to carry out this experiment for me – for all of us.
It is my dream that one day I will be able to disconnect from everyone and from everything. I would urge everyone to at least consider it – if only temporarily, or only just a little. I have even considered moving to places that do not embrace a culture of television, do not have as much accessibility to internet, cable, cell phone towers, etc. Not only is it healthy, but I think it’s the only way to avoid a zombie apocalypse.
In this case I am using the term “zombie apocalypse” to refer to the very real possibility of the world ending at the hands of superficial morons, or as I like to call them, zombies.
There are of course many logical arguments against abandoning such useful devices as telephones, televisions and computers like,
“How am I supposed to communicate with the ones I love?”
“What if something important happens somewhere, I will have no way of knowing.”
“I may be left unprotected during emergencies.”
and other such fit-for-emo-song complaints. Well these are real concerns, but the true pessimist will see the benefit right away. A true realist will come around eventually. And you optimists have fun seeing how many friends you can horde on Facebook while civilization crashes down around you.
My point is that I cut out television from my normal life and felt better immediately – healthier, happier, so on. I also recognize my addiciton to attention through social networks and through cell phones and email, and it makes me feel dirty. I will even go so far as to say that I felt like a more genuine person before I got wrapped up in the tsunami of mass communication that is rapidly forming a global society. Too much staring at screens will drain you physically and obsession over image will drain you mentally, perhaps even change you. That is why I am warning those of you who may share my experiences. Get out now, while you still can.
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Guest Author is any number of contributors to RKNet who have since moved on to bigger and better things (we hope).
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“I have watched plenty of television and felt the depraving addiction to lame TV programs.”
“I have participated in social networks and felt the emptiness of wondering what strangers think of me.”
“I have texted people for no reason, drunk dialed, and entertained other desperate attempts at pointless neediness.”
“I also recognize my addiciton to attention through social networks and through cell phones and email, and it makes me feel dirty.”
I know EXACTLY what you mean…
Home computer, home phone, and satellite tv free for over a year.
The cell phone will be going soon, it’s just the thought of it that hurts. I will keep a tv in the bedroom for the weather ( I drive a motorcycle to work and feel the real need to know if I need to have the rain gear on).
I encourage anyone who shares these ideals to act, you won’t be sorry.
[...] The Gamers often run with the Power Users. They’ve got dozens of boxes and applications cluttering up their page, and they always want you to join in the retardation. They’ll throw snowballs at you, or slap you in the face, kidnap you or declare you their drinking buddy. They’ll ask you to take quizzes like “which 50’s pinup are you?”, “what kind of kisser are you?” , “or what mixed drink are you?” The Gamers don’t actually give a shit if you’re a martini or a gin & tonic, but the only way to find out if they’re the jello-shot like they’ve been hoping, is to bombard you and everyone else on their list to waste time turning each other into zombies. [...]