I am lucky enough to go to a school that leases its students laptops. Under normal circumstances, my blog posts are typed from that laptop. This post is not one of them. Unfortunately, as a result of severe technical difficulties (I think I can safely put severe in italics when the tech department says "your hard drive sounds like an off-balance washing machine") I have left my laptop with the geniuses of the tech department overnight, and it will quite possibly have to remain there throughout the day today. Why do I tell you this? Because what I do with my time without technology is rather interesting.
Because of the way many of my classes are structured (i.e. around the assumption that the students will have laptops) I was able to get very little of my school work done. I think it is only when you are forced to take a night off that you realize just how much school governs your life as a student. My plan to be awake at 10:00 PM to begin tracking Jupiter for my physics class was stymied not only by the cloud cover over my house but also by the fact that I simply didn't have enough work to keep me up that late. I am now 90% certain that my sleep patterns are dictated by my school work.
I think I have also lost sight of how strongly connected I am to the rest of the world by the internet. I spend a good amount of my time home alone, and one of the ways I keep myself sane (other than by listening to podcasts) is by surfing the various social networking sites on which I have accounts. Not possible without a laptop. The 3G around my house is spotty to be complimentary, so many of the smart functions of my smart phone (on which I am typing this post) are disabled simply by location. In the words of The Eagles, "On quiet nights, this big old house gets lonely." Getting in touch with people with whom you don't really want to have a full conversation is somewhat difficult in this day and age. Of course I think the idea that you'd want to know what's going on in the life of someone with whom you wouldn't want to have a full conversation is an invention of this day and age, but I still find my self somewhat perturbed by the fact that I can't do it.
Now, many of you, I'm sure, will note my comment that this post was written on my smart phone and think to yourselves: "She isn't really unplugged!" Since I can't restrain my snark reflex, I will point you to the note that follows regarding the strength of coverage near my house; but you are right, dear hypothetical reader. I think it is honestly impossible to get completely unplugged in 21st century America short of becoming a mountain hermit in Appalachia. I am involved in a program at my school called "Global Scholars" that seeks to incorporate technology into my life to an even greater extent (it is for this program that I blog) as part of an initiative to turn GA students into better global citizens. However, the point I really wish to make is this: to all the bloggers out there who tout the virtues of getting "unplugged", firstly, it's damn hard; and secondly, why would you want to willingly cut yourself off from such an integral part of global life? Very few young people of the late 19th century would have proposed cutting themselves off from the telegraph and mass transportation systems (the things that turned their local worlds into national arenas), yet some twenty-somethings today propose to cut themselves off from the Internet, which - while it may be our lord and master to a certain extent - had made our national arenas into one, real-time global stage. I can't imagine not being connected any more, and, to the people who think real-time connectivity is too mainstream, wake up, smell the Internet, and imagine your life without it.
Yeah, I thought so.
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