Chris Garcia, Saturday, December 6

Wow…I really wasn’t sure if I was going to make through this day without cheating. I was off today and had so many opportunities to watch TV, listen to music, go to the movies, and play video games; pretty much everything we weren’t supposed to do everyone wanted to do on Saturday. Every time I explained to my friends and family that I was doing a media deprivation project they all told me to just cheat; that no one would really know if I cheated. As much as I wanted to give in I didn’t and I suffered all day. As much as I would like to say I’m not media dependent I really am. I haven’t even talked about text messaging yet. I sent out a mass text on Thursday telling everyone that I wasn’t going to receive text messages for two days; nobody listened to me. Instead on Friday I kept getting text messages all day; I decided to send out the mass text again and it helped somewhat. I honestly did not know what to do with myself on Saturday; I just wanted to have a relaxing day. What I didn’t consider was what I consider a relaxing day. Usually I would have played video games for half of the day, or sat in front of a TV and watch movies all day; that’s my idea of a relaxing day. At night I really wanted to go to the movies and couldn’t. I slept a lot on Saturday and spent a lot of time with friends, there was nothing else to do. Being media deprived makes you have to be a social person. During the project I was thinking, what would our lives be like if we didn’t have all the mass media in our lives? I bet we would have a lot closer relationships with our friends, family and we would probably have more friends. This project gave me a chance to kind of reflect on life and consider how much time I really spend using mass media. I am a big thinker and this weekend gave me the opportunity to think a lot more than usual. It really is amazing how consumed we are in mass media; I never would have thought I was so dependent on mass media before this weekend. I know I use mass media a lot but this weekend I found out that I am truly dependent on my mass media.