Life Without Music

When we received this assignment, we were told that we were expected to fail. This angered me and I immediately thought that I could easily go an entire day without being exposed to the media. I failed.
Last Friday was the day I decided that I was going to avoid all forms of electronical technologies. I woke up at eight and simply turned off my phone. I was home for spring break and sitting at the kitchen table when my mom laughed at me and said, “This is going to be a looong day for you.” Still, I was determined. I baked a cake from scratch, as well as made icing and I even made brownies complete with cookies inside them. Baking is a hobby. It was only ten in the morning when I finished all that. I read magazines, took a nap, walked the dog and tried to stay busy. The thing I found myself itching for most was music. I realized that my life comes with a soundtrack and I really hate silence. Around four, my mother sent me to the nearest country store to pick up some eggs and milk. Being a small country store, I figured I would be safe. However, this is where my day failed. There was a television playing the news in the store and just like that I failed. It wasn’t that I couldn’t stay away from the media, but more like the media can’t stay away from me. Unless you hole yourself up, you are going to constantly be exposed to the media.
According to Dianna Walker’s Washington Post article, “The Longest Day,” my generation is known as what is called “digital natives, or ‘millennials’.” A millennial is anyone what was born between the year 1980 and 2000. This generation was raised to have electronics be the main focus of their lives. Nothing completes the décor of a bedroom better than a computer or lap top. Not only do I one hundred percent relate to this, I feel as if those born before this time can also agree as an outsider looking in. While working out at my local YMCA the day before this project I was in the locker room talking to an elderly woman when a young girl walked in. She was wearing her iPod and playing it very loud. She came in, used the bathroom, washed her hands and left all with her music playing the entire time. Now I see nothing wrong with this situation, but the woman that I was having a conversation with said, “you kids are always plugged in.” Now, I never really thought about it before, but she was right. Internet on our phones, small music playing devices, all of these inventions allow us to be everywhere at once. Take it away for a mere 24 hours and we all seem to lose a very important piece of ourselves, almost like we lost an arm or an eye.
It’s the way the world has evolved and it will only progress from here. Times change as the years progress and the way people perceive life changes as much as the tides. Howard Gardner addresses this issue in his article, “The End of Literacy? Don’t Stop Reading,” which was posted in the Washington Post in February of 2008. “Even in the new digital media, it's essential to be able to read and write fluently and, if you want to capture people's attention, to write well. Of course, what it means to "write well" changes: Virginia Woolf didn't write the same way that Jane Austen did, and Arianna Huffington's blog won't be confused with Walter Lippmann's columns. But the imaginative spheres and real-world needs that all those written words address remain.” Just because things become more electronic does not mean that people are becoming dumb. We are not regressing into illiterate fools who depend on our computers to read out loud for us. Rather, we are becoming people who are learning how to simplify and how to become more efficient in today’s demanding lifestyle. I will agree with my aging acquaintance with whom I met randomly in a dingy locker room. I do miss the aesthetics of a good book or newspaper leaving inky black stains on your fingers.
I tried to make it a full 24 hours. I think I can do it without giving into temptation. However, in order for me to successfully give up all forms of electronic media, I need to hole myself up in my house because unfortunately for me the rest of the world cannot manage to give up electronics and therefore it surrounds me wherever I go. It is unavoidable in today’s world.