iPhone 4′s Retina Display v.s. iPhone 3G originally uploaded by Yutaka Tsutano
Last week’s poll was the Best Comment of 2011 voting. Unfortunately lefty’s comment won and now I have to eat with him but there is good news, MSPD’s comment didn’t get a single vote. Yay.
This week’s poll idea comes courtesy of The Wife. She asks if you do anything to consciously take time away from all electronics in your home. We definitely do nothing of the sort ever. While we don’t watch TV nearly as much as the average household, we probably use our computers far more than the average. It’s a little hard for us not to. Between this site, the mommy group The Wife runs, school for me and work, it’s hard to get away from it. However we do turn it off sometimes, although not always together, when we sit down to read books.
Perhaps we should make a conscious effort to set aside specific times every day or at least each week to completely unplug. This should include TV, phone, computers, whatever. However with our schedule and my admitted addiction I just don’t know if it’s possible. Perhaps you all have some ideas on how we could do it–especially if you already do something similar.
So do you do anything to purposefully avoid electronics? Do you set aside time every day or week to do it or do you just randomly decide to hide from them? If you do do it (or would consider doing it) would you only do it selectively (certain devices) or do you think it would be better to just turn everything off at once? What would you do without electronics other than reading? Whatever you have to say about this one vote on the sidebar and then comment on below. After you do both of those things feel free to check out our expired polls in the archive or read through the previous posts about polls here.
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January 8th, 2012 at 8:55 am
Yes, we shut off electronic some afternoons/evenings and read. Not having a smart phone helps a lot – but I’m weakening on that stance. Occasionally we go to separate rooms when we want solitude – especially when it’s time for a siesta. Somos amantes de jubilación!
January 8th, 2012 at 10:03 am
Sadly, my job, and my freelance is based around technology. Between working during the day on a laptop for 8-9 hours, and then coming home at night for more work, either video editing, photos, or web development, I sadly am not more than a few feet from a device. Add on top of that I host all of my network in my basement, so that’s another 1/2 dozen devices.
Some people have a ‘cylinder index’ in their garage.. I track the TB, mhz, and GB’s in my megadome of computers. While, I did try this fall to offset my evening laptop time on the couch with an iPad, that has helped considerably. I’ll check that, and then we watch a little TV..
That being said, I really can’t sit still and not do anything, so even if I take some time to just chill, or try and nap.. within an hour my mind will be thinking of what else needs to be done and then I feel bad that I’m sitting here doing nothing when I can work on something.
The garage is close my my solitude from my regular ‘technology’ infusion, but there, I have a radio and computer for looking up things on the internet, so I’m not totally off the grid.
I do tend to try and ignore my phone at night, or at least leave it in the office so i’m not looking for texts, messing around on twitter etc..
I’d say, camping is my only real recluse to avoiding technology, and even then I have a camera with, and GPS, but that’s a bit different. Rollag used to be our solitude years ago before my phone worked there, and I became more involved. Now, not so much since I manage anything with a hard drive, as well as am the photo an videographer for our show..
While I try and go off the grid totally, it doesn’t work well, but I have begun to significantly moderate the time I spend balls deep in code or video, because after awhile, it just burns me out and I want to throw [it] out the window.
January 8th, 2012 at 10:05 am
Ive had a computer in fron of my face for 30 years. No, really. During that time has been a steady hum of the perennial inquiry, “So, have any cool games on that thing?”
“Nope.” I retort. “I spend all day with my eyeballs transfixed on this screen. The last thing I want to do is spend my leisure time doing the same.” in fact, I avoided computer games and gaming consoles most of my life; I feared actually liking them.
I love gadgets. I have a crapload of them. And, I make a point now and them of walking away from them all every once in a while.
——
“I called you 2 days ago.”
“Yeah, I put my phone in my office and left it there for a couple of days. Hey look, nobody died.”
January 8th, 2012 at 10:12 am
I am one of those who has a job that, if I am doing a good job, I don’t have a lot to do every day. If things are going well, there is not much to do if I don’t want to.
I am basically employed to be there if something goes wrong and fix it as soon as I can. Because of this, I am never less than hip’s length from my phone. I have phone chargers in my office, in my car and next to my bed. If my phone beeps telling me I have an email, I check it. I respond to emails at 3 in the morning if necessary. I am on task when on vacation and on holidays
Do I love that I am basically on task 24/7? I think I do. The only time I don’t jump to respond to a message is if sex is involved, but I can always get back to them in 2 minutes.
January 8th, 2012 at 10:19 am
I was going to say at least once a day, when I’m reading. But, I read on a Kindle, so maybe that doesn’t count.
January 8th, 2012 at 11:10 am
I try to take take as many breaks from electronics as I can. I’m on the road to glasses that I likely wouldn’t need if my job didn’t require me to look at a screen for 8 hours a day (okay, 6 1/2).
I watch a fair amount of television, but it’s generally limited to a half hour for Jeopardy after work and an hour or two of shows that we dvr. I’m not a channel surfer.
That only leaves the phone in terms of electronic devices I use. Getting an iPhone a few months ago hasn’t changed my behavior nearly as much as I thought it would. Most of the time it replaces the computer, instead of being in addition to it. It’s changed the way I communicate with people for sure, but I don’t think I use it for much more. I still prefer to write with a pencil and read paper.
January 8th, 2012 at 11:22 am
Unless I’m out of cell range, I’m always connected. I try to be conscious of my time plugged in while at home. A dad who’s always buried in a screen isn’t much of a dad. I try to limit my laptop time in the evening since it’s much easier for me to get sucked into a time vortex with that than on my phone. Mu phone, however, is never off.
January 8th, 2012 at 11:24 am
For what it’s worth, I should add that I don’t have a TV and am not a gamer, so my phone and laptop are my only electronic distractions. They’re more than enough.
January 8th, 2012 at 11:32 am
Other than sleeping, I’m never really totally disengaged from tech, though there are certainly times where it is not something I am paying much attention to.
January 8th, 2012 at 3:07 pm
You know the feeling you get when you catch yourself mindlessly grazing on junk food? That’s how I feel with the internet. I find myself mindlessly turning to my laptop and surfing around checking out various websites with no real purpose. I don’t need to check my email as I already have, I don’t need to check the half a dozen other sites I find myself going back to again and again during the day. And then once I’ve made sure that nothing interesting has happened on facebook, twitter, lazylightning, the mommy group since I was last there. I don’t then turn off the laptop. Instead I find myself looking at humor websites or other junk for my mind. Then I look back and wonder why I’m throwing away so much time that I could have been doing something else.
I don’t have a cell phone at all much less a smart phone and I think that is for the best. Same with an ipad and all that. I shutter to think at what I’d do with those in my possession. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a dedicated office again someday in a future house with a desktop computer as opposed to a laptop. I think I’d be more likely to sit there for a little bit and then get up and do something else because it’s not as convenient to be tied down to a single room away from everything else.
January 8th, 2012 at 8:17 pm
I’m pretty much online unless I’m sleeping or playing board games. And even playing board games I’m checking my text messages just in case someone is trying to get a hold of me. I think if I didn’t live alone I may spend more time off my phone/computer, but that’s how it is. I can go days without having a real conversation with a live person, but not feel lonely because I’m connected by twitter/text/facebook/etc.
January 8th, 2012 at 8:55 pm
Pretty much the only time of day I’m unplugged is between when I get home from work and when Annie goes to bed on weeknights. My phone is on, but I don’t look at it – no one ever calls/texts me anyway so it’s never been an issue. It’s not too difficult because we’re busy making dinner, eating dinner, cleaning up, and hanging out with Annie for awhile. It’s usually about 2.5 hours a day or so. On the weekends I try to just not be on my laptop TOO much while Annie is awake, but it does happen (usually right away in the morning while drinking coffee) and obviously I still use my phone to take pics and post to twitter occasionally but I usually don’t do much actual checking of websites until she’s napping or in bed.
January 8th, 2012 at 9:32 pm
I suppose I’m a bit in denial. I don’t really call listening to pod casts or audio books on my smart phone or before that, a mp3 player. I’m pretty much doing that when working outside, mowing, working in the garage, taking down Christmas lights. I’ll take time and read a book on my Kindle. Before that it was actual books.
Computer wise, I guess I check e-mail on the phone, tweet sometimes, read tweets other. But when at home at night the phone pretty much sits on the counter and I look at it before bed is all. If I’m busy at work, I can spend a week not touching the computer at home.
Much of this all depends on your current stage of life. When our kids were really little, I’d do some BBS stuff at night, but for the most part they kept us busy. When they were older we were pretty busy with stuff we would sign them up for. Though we did play video games together. These days we probably use electronics more than is ideal, though in the summer we don’t use them that much. We’re usually doing something outside.
This winter we have been playing some card games each night. Phase 10, Skipbo. We do that for an hour or two each night, usually after dinner. Then we chat and catch up or watch some show together.
I went through about a 3 month period when I started getting way too into Facebook. Near the end of that period I recognized how much of a hole for time that I was being sucked into. And I recognized how unimportant it was compared to other things I could be spending my time on.
About time to shut this thing off for the night.
January 9th, 2012 at 9:21 am
iPhone is never too far away, ever – no matter where I am. Same for the iPad when I’m at home. The computers don’t get much use at home these days – the iDevices are just more convenient when sitting on the couch.
I do try to not look at them for a couple of hours in the evening and instead do things with my 20 month old daughter.
I don’t purposely unplug, but there are weekends where I don’t look much at any of it.
January 9th, 2012 at 1:04 pm
Most of my electronic time happens at work. Which is 40 hours per week. I can’t help that. For the time that my hubby and I can help, our “strategy” is that we simply don’t have good electronic gadgets. We have a limited budget, and having the latest and greatest isn’t a priority for us. As long as our electronics are servicable, we keep them. So, our TV is 20 years old. The converter box just broke, and we decided not to replace it. We only had network channels anyhow, and I decided I can live without House (though just barely). Now we just use it to watch DVDs.
Our computer is about 10 years old. I can blog, facebook, email, and deal with my photos; but I can’t watch TV/Movies on it. Blogging, when I’m on, takes the bulk of my home computer time.
We do have smartphones, but those are even getting old. I use it to check my email, the weather, facebook, read the news, and listen to music. I usually only do that on the bus to and from work (if even that – I read a book more often).
We really don’t do a lot of time with our electronics to begin with, so we don’t typically feel a need to work in a break from them!
January 10th, 2012 at 6:30 pm
I do! I am rarely on during the day while teaching at many times and at night I leave my laptop in the bag. Sometimes I have to “unplug” to force myself to relax and usually I would rather be reading a book :)
January 15th, 2012 at 8:27 am
[...] week’s poll asked if you took breaks from electronics at any point during the week. While we don’t in this house aside from an hour or so a day of reading, I was surprised to [...]