Kerry Mulligan
Unlike Bill McKibben, my hour of media consumption revolved around social media and news applications. I refrain from watching the news on live tv unless something breaking is in development. Tuesday 2/2 at 10:00 pm I started my journey on social media by opening my old pal Snapchat up. I responded to a few friends via video recording and looked at other people’s stories. I got into a brief debate with one of my friends exchanging a fairly straightforward back and forth conversation. This lasted 10 minutes. Next, I opened my favorite, albeit toxic application, Twitter. I scrolled for a minute losing track of time after deep-diving into a few different threads. Before I knew it 20 minutes had passed. I then proceeded to the news app after remembering an article I came across on Twitter. It was an interesting piece about “How Wind Turbines Could be Recycled and Reused” by Christopher McFadden. I didn’t understand some of the technical terminologies but I found it to informative reading. Lastly, I turned to Instagram and tik tok for my remaining 20 minutes changing a few times intermittently between the 2 channels. I posted to my story on Instagram and answered a few DM’s while watching a few tik tok videos in between to refresh my short attention span.
This morning at 9:00 am I tried to receive 1 hour of naturalistic media free intake. Unfortunately, we got off to a bad start. Usually, when I go outside to hike/walk I’ll bring my phone and air pods so I can listen to an audiobook or music. As I started my walk towards Lake Mercer with my dog I realized that I had put on my workout playlist for the first five minutes. I turned it off and tried staying attuned to the outdoors and my wonderful pet. Multiple times I caught myself reaching into my pocket when I’d feel my phone vibrate. I stopped myself at the lock screen before I could engage with the content. My apple watch was also on during the time and I would frequently look at the watch face instead of embracing my surrounding. This might be in part because I often do this specific walking path therefore the stimuli are rather boring to me. Only when I finally reached the lake did I feel at peace with the environment. I stayed there for 10 minutes watching the lake and other people pass by. The only point I was tempted to use my phone was when I saw a fungi species that I wanted to identify with the seek app (since I’m not confident in my ability to classify by eyesight alone). On the way back when my hour was finished, I decided to listen to an audiobook instead of challenging myself to continue the rest of the walk media-free.
This activity was certainly a learning experience. I knew going into it that I would have some difficulty doing the second half of this challenge. If I could do it again I probably would have brought a friend with me instead of going about it alone. In an ideal world, my love of nature and all its creatures would overpower my neurodivergent thought patterns. However, constant media exposure is a coping mechanism of mine that has been ingrained in me. Being left alone with my thoughts for too long can cause high distress so suffice it to say it was challenging to complete the walk without engaging in social media or any other media source.