Technology Diet

What would you do if you had to spend one week without technology? Would you go crazy? Would it be a welcome reprieve?

This was the issue facing the one and only Tom Haverford in last week’s episode of Parks and Recreation.

Tom (played by the hilarious Aziz Ansari) was sentenced by a judge to a week without screens of any kind after getting into a car accident while tweeting. His negligence was proven by his pre-accident tweets, which included:

“Four green lights in a row. #blessed”

…….and this one:

A self-proclaimed techaholic, Tom is completely beside himself over this sentence and even goes so far as to make an imaginary Pinterest board and an iPhone out of paper.

Photo via Hulu

Eventually, Ron decides that enough is enough, and offers to take Tom to his cabin in the woods for a little serenity and detox time. While there, he encourages Tom to list out everything he does on the internet to get it out of his system once and for all:

Tom: “Okay, I start everyday by hitting up Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. Sometimes I like to throw in Linkedin. For the profession shawwwties.Then I like to go on Reddit. Reddit is great because it has all the important links…..”

………..”Wikipedia is mankind’s greatest invention. You can learn about anything. We all know Ray J. We all know he’s a singer. He’s Brandy’s brother. And he was in that classic sex tape with Kim Kardashian. But, did you also know he’s Snoop Dogg’s cousin AND he was in the 1996 Tim Burton movie Mars Attacks? Suddenly, you’re on the Mars Attacks page!”

…………..”I love gChat, you can talk to anybody! I hit up brad.pitt. It wasn’t the actor. It was actually a guy named Brad that’s a teacher in Pittsburgh. We don’t have a lot in common, but we chat quite a bit.”

……..”Podcasts! There are a million of them and they’re all amazing! Jean Ralphio and I have one called “Nacho Average Podcast”, where we rate different kinds of nachos.”

(Source: http://betabeat.com/2012/10/park-and-recreation-tom-haverford-tech-addiction-internet-twitter/)

In the end, Tom admits that he relies on technology so much because things in his life aren’t going that great, and he’d rather play Doodlebots than think about it. I can sort of relate. Except that for me, technology is more of a crutch for my unwavering and crippling loneliness. I definitely notice a marked increase in my social media usage the lonelier/sadder/more homesick I am feeling… and maybe that’s a bad thing. But hey, at least it’s not heroin.

I took a quick mental tally of all the types of technology and social media I rely on. The verdict? Bad, but not as bad as Tom.

Things I love and use all the time:

• TV (!!!)
• My iPhone:

Yes this is a picture I took of myself looking wistfully at my iphone. And no, there is nothing sadder. Except for maybe how many takes there were of this.

• Facebook
• Youtube
• Twitter – I rarely ever tweet, but I do heavily twitter-stalk Seth Meyers, Joel McHale, Mindy Kaling, Lena Dunham, Aziz Ansari (see how this all came full circle?) and a handful of other celebrities I like to pretend I’m friends with in real life.

• Instagram-I only have like one follower though. Follow me! @ breezyk1. I can’t promise much, besides self-pics and coffee cups…
• Blogging- obvi.
• Buzzfeed – Strictly for the high ratio of cat to human pictures.

Things I don’t use:

• Pinterest (I want to maintain some semblance of a life)
• Gchat
• Iphone games like Angry Birds, words with friends etc. (Again, with the life thing).
• Skype (waaay too awkward for that noise)
• Kindles/E- Readers (I like the whole “trophy case” effect of a bookshelf. Plus having a lot of books around just makes me look SMRT. )

Not my house

I actually thought about attempting a week without technology as a sort of blog experiment. But then I realized that was just the Pinot grigio talking and thought better of it. I’d miss all my gadgets and you guys would miss my quirky online presence. I’m sure of it

Question of the Day: Could you go a week without technology? Which types of technology/social media do you use the most?

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