My experiment

           The experiment had started and the first thing I did when I woke up was grab my phone. I couldn’t help myself; it was instinctive. Snapchat opened up and then immediately closed as I remembered my proposal for the experiment.  I sat there staring at my phone, asking myself why on earth it was so hard for me not to use social media. According to Amanda Lenhart, “92% of teens report going online daily” (Lenhart, PRC). This experiment of not using social media, especially on my phone, is supposed to assist me in answering this vital question, but it seems too damned hard. I am afraid that I will not be able to get through these next two weeks, but perseverance is what I need.

           I went about my day without changing anything, hearing the buzzing on my cellphone as I received notifications from Snapchat and what people were tweeting on Twitter. Then came the texts from my friends from Northern Virginia (NOVA). “Yoooooooo, you have gotta look at this pic homie!” said one of them. I finally broke right after English class and begun going through all the pics and tweets that had accumulated on my phone. I realized ignoring the issue was not going to work. The first thing I did when I got back to my dorm was turn off the notifications on all of my social media apps. Hopefully this would help me in avoiding these apps. For the rest of the day, I went without any buzzing besides the text messages that I received. It was almost like the apps weren’t even on my phone. It was a very relieving feeling, but how come people, especially teens, believe it is almost entirely required to connect with friends online? The world we live in revolves around technology. A different Pew Research Center poll as of 2012 showed that “81% of online teens use some kind of social media” (PRC). Teens feel connected online particularly when their friends are farther away. This could explain why I am always talking to my friends from NOVA through these social media applications. At night, I usually check my apps to make sure that I didn’t have any remaining notifications that I had missed. However, the experiment told me that I couldn’t. So I laid down in my bed, but the thought of getting my phone gnawed at the back of my mind. Quickly, before I could talk myself out of it, I snatched my phone, tore off the back cover, and ripped the battery out. I dropped it onto my computer from my loft bed and placed my phone into the bedside buddy I have hanging from the mattress. Knowing that I would have to do more work in order to get my phone back online, it was extremely easy for me to sleep peacefully.