My Tech-free Challenge!

Before I embark on my tech-free challenge, it would be useful to all my readers to explain what a tech-free challenge is and what it will consist of. A tech-free challenge is a 24-48 hour period that you don't use technology to a certain level. I plan on taking the tech-free challenge at level 1: no cell phones, iPods, console games, computers or internet. I will perform my tech-free challenge on October 12th, 2009.

On the day of my tech-free challenge, I went bow hunting. It was the opening day of the season and I had been planning on going out for a while. I thought this would be a good time to do the challenge because there wouldn't be many responsibilities that I would have to tend to: homework, work, school, etc. I woke up to an alarm (which was allowed) around 4:45am and got ready to venture into the woods. I wandered the woods for a few hours and then I went back home for lunch. I did watch a little TV while eating lunch. I then began to do some homework that wasn't necessary to do but I did it anyways because at that time of day, the deer would not be moving around anywhere so if I was in the woods it would have been quite useless. Around 4:30 I got dressed again in all my hunting gear and ventures back into the woods until sunset. (I did take a nap while I was at home after lunch.)

I did not find the challenge to be challenging. I had been planning to go hunting that day anyways. In some ways I feel that I cheated because I made it so easy for myself to succeed. We were suppose to try to live a normal day without technology. The thing is, if this had been a normal day where I was able to use technology, I wouldn't have used it because I was in the woods and there was no purpose for me to use it at all. Some exceptions of technology that I could have used, but didn't, are a rangefinder, electronic calls, GPS, etc.

Perhaps you could take this challenge upon yourself? Does it sound interesting? I found this challenge relatively easy because the activities I chose to do didn't require much technology.

Now, I challenge you...to challenge yourself.

Thanks for reading!

Response to Technopoly

Throughout the whole book I felt that he was quite pessimistic. He only looked at how technology has ruined life and society and not how it has helped us. I do feel that he made truthful comments about technology. I think the reason this book has such strong opinions against it is because Postman is so willing to put his own opinions in the book. When people read his opinions and don't agree that creates conflict and opinions of Postman's opinions and not of the opinions that people have about technology. I personally didn't let his opinions affect me that much because the book has already been published and there is no way for anyone to do away with it. I just accepted what he said as his opinions and that was it.

In certain chapters in the book, I felt that he was trying to convince the reader that technology has hurt us. For example, in the medical technology chapters he talks about how doctors used to diagnose patients with their own eyes and ears, now they have CT Scans and X-Rays and Intrascopic procedures. In my opinion this has advanced medical technology. Humans can only see so much about a patient on the outside but the problem may be on the inside. I did agree with him, however, that some doctors take advantage of the technology that is accessible to them (medication and machinery).

In class discussions, I felt that I was open to people's opinions and listened to them but didn't form my own opinions because of the way that they felt. I think the main influence this book had on the class was how open Postman was about his opinions to each piece of technology.(I do not feel that is was a down-side that people had such strong opinions, although I did feel that people express their opinions of his opinions far too much in class.)

Thanks for reading!

Students in this class will be examining the relationship between technology and community through literature. What is progress? How has out relationship to technology shaped our culture, and what does this mean for our present and our future? They will be reading selective nonfiction about this relationship while studying dystopian fiction: texts that describe utopias gone wrong. They will examine the way these texts reveal our rears and our values. Along the way, they will propose a tech-free challenge to our community: how does living without modern conveniences affect our interactions? The results of this experiment will be documented and discussed, and students will create narratives that articulate their visions for the ideal coexistence of technology and community.–As pertains to the course description