Could You Make It Without Media For 4 Seconds?

There's a potentially interesting article in the Seattle Times about a potentially interesting class at Seattle University that includes in its coursework a potentially interesting experiment. It's an experiment in "media deprivation" for a class called "Restorative Solitude." Ninety six hours, no media. Awesome. It reminds us of Chris Pirillo's Google Fast. In the teeny bopper world in which the article is set "media" are things like cell phone, email, internet, iPod, TV, at least those are the options in their "what could you live without" poll (we voted internet). Hat tip to the Times for realizing the futility of listing "newspaper" in there, at least, but that's a pretty narrow view of what constitutes media to the teenagers or young twentyish types towards to whom this article seems to be directed.

And we can't let the first line pass because it taints the whole thing for us: "Four days unplugged? LOL ... RU crazy?" Seattle Times, RU F'N crazy? Seattlest consumes a lot of media, individually and collectively. It's what we do. We read a lot of crap on the internets, talk on the phone, send text messages, instant message all the live long day, listen to music, watch the TV. We read a hell of a lot of newspapers, actually. We even read them when we're watching the TV thanks to the damn Wii and its browser and news channel. We never ever write "LOL ... RU crazy?"

And if the people mentioned in this article think they have a media consumption problem wait until they get a job.

Before attempting Adelman's media diet, students kept a log of their consumption. On a typical Thursday, junior Blaire Babcock, 21, found she checked her e-mail five different times, turned on the TV three times, checked her phone messages twice, browsed Facebook.com once, and once listened to her radio while jogging.

Fine. That's a pretty light diet, and we'd starve to death on it, but ok. What flavor of consciousness expansion can be achieved by such an experiment? Perhaps a renewed vigor for charging at intellectual opportunity?

Lee and the other students said they felt better able to concentrate and discovered they had more free time to spend reading and doing homework.

Lee also found one unexpected benefit. Because her CD player didn't start blasting the moment she turned the key in her 2005 Toyota Corolla, for the first time she noticed an unusual rattling noise in the engine: "like there's marbles inside a box and someone's shaking the box."

Followed by a realization that the car is just a tool to carry you from one media consumption venue to another in a never-ending mobius strip of petro-electric blather that distracts us from truly living life? We are just shaken marbles in the box of our digital preoccupations?

She is planning to consult a mechanic.

We missed forty thousand emails for that? Fuck it.

Media addiction is a serious issue and a class about that that includes a media deprivation experiment is a cool thing, but reducing the argument about the media in our lives to "LOL" is pretty weak. We do it for the lulz, at least.