The Lincoln Log

When my editor first approached me with this article, I couldn’t believe what she had in store for me. I was asked to see how long I, an average student, could last without modern technology for one week, with a few exceptions: I could use the microwave once a day and the fridge twice a day. I could also listen to an old fashioned radio, if available.

I’m sure that everyone reading right now either has a home-computer, regular access to one, or even a cell phone in their pocket. Have any of you ever tried to live without all of those fancy little gadgets that we take for granted everyday?

As I was going through this tech-free trial, I found that I experienced a lot of problems. My problems were especially concerned with computers. As I am constantly on a computer, being without one made me insane. I cannot live without the use of computers; I love and need the leisure of using the Internet – checking my email and watching videos For me, computers are the hardest things for me to avoid.

Just five hours into my assignment and I was already going crazy. The computer was right there, off, and it was taunting me in it’s modern glory.

Throughout the whole first day, I was bleeding on this inside. I could not believe why I had even agreed to commit to this assignment. It seemed so easy, but since I had grown up living off of microwaves, televisions and videogames, to live without them was unthinkable.

After half the first day had passed, I was bored – bored out of my mind. I haven’t been on the computer since Friday, which was only the day before.

I attempted to play board games, only to give up a little while later, more bored than before. It was in the late afternoon when I really started to lose it.

It had only been half a day since I started this trial, and I was really starting to feel the torture. I was so close to cracking just before dinner time came around, but I was strong and decided to go to sleep earlier than usual.

The morning of the second day, I had the urge to listen to that iPod of mine – it was calling to me. Yet I knew that I would have to resist from even touching it, so I tuned in to the radio and I managed to distract myself for a couple of minutes until I started to get, once again, bored.

I knew that I couldn’t last a whole week without technology, but I thought that I could last at least the rest of the second day. As lunchtime approached, my sister was listening to some music on the computer. I had not been on the computer or used any glorious technology since Friday, and now it was Sunday.

I knew that the weekends were for us to relax, to catch up for what we missed during the week. You’re not supposed to strain yourself over the weekend, right? I thought about this and this is when I cracked. The task was over, I couldn’t last any longer, I was going insane.

All of the electronic devices that we think that we cannot live without, we can. For me though, two days is all I can handle.