Ask Lemmy

As I'm currently reading Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, I literally can't help myself but post some excerpt. It's only 105 pages btw.

One professor uses the book in conjunction with an experiment she calls an “e-media fast.” For twenty-four hours, each
student must refrain from electronic media. When she announces the assignment, she told me, 90 percent of the students
shrug, thinking it’s no big deal. But when they realize all the things they must give up for a whole day—cell phone, computer,
Internet, TV, car radio, etc.—“they start to moan and groan.” She tells them they can still read books. She acknowledges it will
be a tough day, though for roughly eight of the twenty-four hours they’ll be asleep. She says if they break the fast—if they
answer the phone, say, or simply have to check e-mail—they must begin from scratch.

“The papers I get back are amazing,” says the professor. “They have titles like ‘The Worst Day of My Life’ or ‘The Best
Experience I Ever Had,’ always extreme. ‘I thought I was going to die,’ they’ll write. ‘I went to turn on the TV but if I did I
realized, my God, I’d have to start all over again.’ Each student has his or her own weakness—for some it’s TV, some the cell
phone, some the Internet or their PDA. But no matter how much they hate abstaining, or how hard it is to hear the phone ring
and not answer it, they take time to do things they haven’t done in years. They actually walk down the street to visit their
friend. They have extended conversations. One wrote, ‘I thought to do things I hadn’t thought to do ever.’ The experience
changes them. Some are so affected that they determine to fast on their own, one day a month. In that course I take them
through the classics—from Plato and Aristotle through today—and years later, when former students write or call to say hello,the thing they remember is the media fast.”