I Want My Media...FAST!

I've known for quite some time now that media, for young children, is damaging to intellectual development, capacity for imagination, physical health and attention span.

The research to back this up is intensifying, and I've read much of it. Online. All day, and all night. Article after article after article.

So, when the school I work at, Toronto Waldorf School, attempted a volunteer media fast for the families of grades 1 through 8, for the month of May (May is a very long month!), I decided to participate.

I used my own modified version of the rules - I do, after all, work at a computer all day long (my director would not have been too happy were I to go cold turkey and put my laptop in a drawer for the month). I decided to reject spending time online unless it was directly related to work, I put my iPod in a drawer, I stopped picking up magazines and newspapers while waiting in the check-out line, and if I actually owned a TV, I may have thrown it off the balcony (mostly to add to the drama).

Admission: I cheated. Big time.

I went to the movies 4 times during May; that is about twice my annual average. 3 of them were documentaries so I felt ok about that at the time; I made an, er, some, exceptions.

I'm trying to find a roommate, so I visited Craigslist and Facebook VERY often to get my ad into everyone's psyche. I'm not sure if it's good or bad that my approach didn't work. May, and now half of June, went by and I still have an empty room here.

Towards the end of the month I started to lose steam: music is the blood in my veins, and other than catching few live shows, I was starting to feel anaemic. I began listening to music while getting ready to leave the apartment; then soon upon arriving; then while cooking. At first I told myself (yes, when you do a media fast you find yourself talking to yourself incessantly) that if it was the same song over and over again, it was allowed. That rule lasted about as long as it made sense. Quite frankly, I am a happier person when listening to my music.

So my media fast turned out to be a media diet.

What was so fascinating about the media diet was my internal experience. The talking to myself. I found myself less able to distract myself from making a decision because there was nothing else to do. The noise was gone and the ideas present came not from elsewhere, but from within. I mulled things over more thoroughly last month, genuinely decompressing or relaxing and, I found myself in rare states of focus. I not only asked myself some long over-due questions, but I even articulated some answers.

Many insights incarnated in my heart last month because there was nothing to take my attention away. With the combination of new insights and no distractions, I found myself taking action rather than passively listening to or watching something that may not have done anything more me but stimulate my short-term memory.

I rarely stayed home in the evenings of May: I went out with friends nearly every night, or I went to the gym, for a walk, or all of the above. My energy level was quite high, and I felt more creative.

I made a number of new friends and acquaintances in May, and that’s a real treat. As much as I appreciate and indentify with Bill Maher or Mark Morford, we have never, and may never, have a real exchange of energy or ideas. I chatted in person with people that had more insight into my favourite topic, politics, than most politicians seem to these days. Our conversation were void of spin, full of earnestness.

Just like that trip to the steakhouse at the end of a lemon juice deit, the onset of June brought a curiosity of what I’d missed during May.

The top Canadian political story of May was that an attractive MP was getting her shoes shined and treating the shiners like trash. A crime? Probably. Headline news? Really? That was the most important event in Canada in May?

I apparently also missed out on Adam Lambert losing American Idol. More importantly, I missed seeing his mug all the time (and believe me, that's a blessing. I can't count the number of times I've been told how much he looks like me. If I get asked for my autograph again...).

The planet is burning and this what everyone was talking about while I was talking to myself? Could there be a stronger reason to turn off the tv? Could there be a stronger indication that the mass media tells us what’s worth knowing so we don’t have to decide? Could it be any clearer that we get easily entertained and distracted so we don’t have to use our imaginations and will to fix a broken world?

It's so frustrating to realize that while humanity is driving itself into a ditch and drowning in the dirty water, the most many of us can do is watch the accident on a screen. (That would be irony if it were funny...)

I enjoy staying up to date with current events. I love a good laugh at a funny movie. I love knowing what my friends are up to by keeping in touch over Facebook. I’m not willing to give these things up.

Yet I now realize that it’s when I’m doing these things that I’m really missing out. Missing out on the connection with people I could be face to face with. Missing out on the thrill of on original idea, borne of my very own psyche. Missing out on the “slow and steady wins the race” approach. Missing out on talking to myself, checking in with me to see where I stand, how I feel.

I’ve heard the best way to beat a bad habit is to replace it with a good habit. From now on I will try to close my laptop a little earlier in the evening and rest my eyes. I will use time more wisely by doing work instead of picking up the commuter paper on the subway, therefore having more time later in the day for a walk or a rendezvous with friends.

I wrote this on the computer. Online.

But now I'm done.
I'm logging off.