The Evaluation

The class as a whole was very different from the normal courses that we take, which made it pretty interesting and fun to be a part of. Having our own blogs that we could customize and update was a great experience and it was always exciting to see if there were any new posts. I don’t have any other blogs besides this one, so it was kind of weird at first when I created this one and I wasn’t totally sure what type of responses I would get. But after a few weeks of seeing how everything worked, I got the hang of it and I really enjoyed posting.

One of the assignments that I liked was the one for the second week where we had options on what we could do. Being able to choose what videos to watch was a nice little change than being told to watch something and only given one option. Watching those things is also more fun than having to read a book or something else. I also really liked the wild card because like the other assignment, you could choose what you wanted to do, which made it more appealing to me and I could write about anything that came to mind. I think you should have more assignments like these in the future and maybe have even more that give you the opportunity to watch videos.

I didn’t really care for the assignments that made you have to do a lot of extra work with other people. Like the writing letters to two people that had an influence on you or the interviewing three people from the different generations. Maybe it’s just me and I’m lazy like that, but those weren’t my favorite to do.

One of the things that I really liked was that some blogs had a list of everybody in our class and the name of each student was linked to their corresponding blog. This should be something that everybody should do on their blogs. It makes it so that the blogs aren’t as distant from each other and they’re somewhat connected outside of Blackboard.

There are also a few things that could be changed in the syllabus for future terms that would make the course run a little smoother. Have a section for the blog that details which blog sites to use, if there’s a choice, and what options to check or uncheck. That would make setting one up easier for those that have never done so before and it would make it so that everybody had the same settings on each blog. On the syllabus it would be easier to follow the weekly blog topic assignments if they weren’t in a paragraph form. They should be spaced out a little more; maybe even utilizing bullet points to clarify which questions should be answered. This is also something that can be done with other parts of the syllabus where there are huge paragraphs. It can be difficult to read those and still find the important parts in them.

But overall, the class was fun to be in and I really enjoyed being part of the small community we had created!

 

Internet Abuse

I found a story about how a man and woman met online through MySpace, and then went to see each other in person, which then led to problems. In this case, the woman doesn’t get raped, but instead she brings the man, a known sex offender, back to her home and lets him sleep in the bed with both of her daughters. The two children, ages 11 and 14, are the ones that get abused and mistreated by the man. What’s even worse is that the mother knew that the man was a sex offender and had even asked county officials to allow the man to stay with her. Her request was denied, but she brought him over anyways. She had no regard for the safety of her children.

This could have been prevented if MySpace had been able to find the sex offender’s profile and deleted it before anybody could meet him online. If this had been done, then nobody would have been able to contact him and there wouldn’t have been any issues. I know that MySpace is already doing this to thousands of other sex offender’s accounts, but obviously it’s not quick enough to get all of them, nor is it the best way to prevent this kind of interaction. In this case, since the man was already being tracked with a GPS ankle bracelet, the legal authorities monitoring him should have intervened once they saw him traveling back and forth between the counties. They should have taken action and figured out what was going on. Instead, they let the information come to them, after everything had already happened and the damage was done. So to prevent the interaction between the man and woman, MySpace could have deleted the man’s account and the county officials could have stopped him by not letting him leave the county.

Another way to prevent this sort of thing from happening would be if the mother had actually cared for her daughters. It’s common sense that you don’t interact with somebody you meet online, especially a known sex offender, then let them sleep in your house, in the same bed as your daughters. I don’t know how you could let that happen without actually realizing what you were doing. Any normal mother that had a working brain would have seen the red flags and not put her children in any kind of harm.

This whole incident has a negative effect on the Internet, because people read about these types of incidents and think that we should tighten or lock up all Internet access just because it helped somebody carry out a crime. They think that every site or ISP the criminal used should be held responsible and that those companies should be the ones regulating what is being done over their bandwidth. This may seem somewhat rational if you’re still pretty angry about the whole crime, but if you actually think about it in a coherent manner, this isn’t the way these things should be regulated. Blame shouldn’t be put on those companies just because somebody failed to use their product in the intended manner. It’s just like a robber using a Ford Focus for a robbery. It’s not Ford’s fault that somebody used their car to rob a bank. Granted, on the Internet these companies can express stricter rules than what Ford could do, but it still shouldn’t make them responsible for every heinous act carried out over their network.

In Postman’s latest chapter, he mentions that we have “rights without responsibilities” in relation to technology taking over our culture. Although this may be the case in some situations, I think we still should be held accountable with what we do when using the Internet or any other form of technology. In my example of the sex offender and woman, the woman didn’t fulfill her responsibilities as a parent. The duties of being a mother seemed to elude her mind throughout the entire time the man was at their place. The man wasn’t responsible with his actions, since he knowingly persuaded a woman to allow him to sleep in the same place as her daughters. He knew what he was doing and didn’t stop to think about how it would affect everybody in the end.

http://www.vbbeacon.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2009/03/10/49b67f8c98874

 

The Internet Is Easier

An experience that I had involving the web where it made my life easier was when I had to contact Dell to replace a broken drive on my laptop. It was shortly after I had just purchased my first laptop and so I was pretty excited about having it and what I could now do since I wasn’t chained to my desktop computer. I was looking for a cd on my dresser, moving everything around, shuffling stuff from here to there, when by the shove of my elbow a small hardback book fell off the dresser onto my ejected cdrom drive. The impact bent the drive downward and I couldn’t even close it anymore. I bent it slightly back to the way it should be, but the drive still wouldn’t close all the way and my day was pretty much ruined. I had just used all of my money to buy the laptop and hadn’t really earned much money since then, so I didn’t have anything left to purchase a replacement module.

So I went onto Dell’s website looking for any information on what I could do to fix my problem and I came upon their Technical Support contact info. One of the options they had was to speak with a representative live through an instant messenger on their site. I figured this would be the most effective way to do this because it would allow better communication between us than it would be on the phone where we might not be able to understand each other because of various factors. I was able to easily reach somebody on the instant messenger and it turns out they were able to help me out and send a new drive within a couple of weeks. The whole process went very smoothly and it saved me the time and frustration often associated with phone calls where you usually have to push 7 or more different numbers to get to the right department then listen to bad quality music when they put you on hold for 25 minutes.

This method of service wouldn’t have been possible without the internet. It shows how far some businesses have evolved and adapted to the web and what can happen when they truly put some effort into their customer support. Having an instant messenger on the website was even more convenient than sending emails, because it was in real time and I didn’t have to wait for a response to come in hours later. I could explain my problem right then and there and I would get a response back immediately. Being online has another advantage over phones when checking the part numbers and serial numbers. On the phone it would have taken a while to say all 20 letters and numbers for the product key and then the representative would have to verify each one making sure they heard me correctly. Whereas online, I can just type the key in and there wouldn’t be any confusion or hassle.

Having access to the internet, as addressed in the latest chapter of Wood and Smith, is crucial to these types of services. It allowed me to fix a problem much easier than it otherwise would have and it most likely saved Dell quite a bit of money since they could reduce the amount of time each representative was spending with every customer. If somebody didn’t have access to the web, they wouldn’t be able to do this and they’d be forced to use a different method that wouldn’t be nearly as efficient.

 

Generations

I interviewed three people from my family since I already knew them and it’d be more comfortable asking them questions. For the first generation, I interviewed my brother. He’s a sophomore here at Oregon State majoring in business. He uses the internet for many different things and it’s a big part of his lifestyle. He checks up on sports scores and information throughout the day and he’s active in a few car and tech forums. And since he has an iPhone, he’s online even more so than most other people. He’s really comfortable using the internet, primarily since it’s been a part of his life for so long and he grew up with it. Also, being in a family that has a lot of interest in working with computers, he’s been around them for quite some time even when he was younger. He said that technology has changed the way he lives his life, mainly because he can do a lot more now, than he could in the past. It’s much easier for him to communicate with friends and to complete tasks than if he didn’t have his computer or phone. And with a number of TV shows being brought online, he mentioned that he watches more shows on his computer than on the actual television. He thinks the internet is a great resource for whatever your need is and that it’s an essential part of life in our current generation.

For the middle generation, I interviewed my dad. He studied computer science back in college and has followed the movement since back in the early days. He uses the internet for a number of things as well, but email was his main draw. He also uses eBay and Craigslist on a regular basis to buy and sell things, as well as purchasing items from many other online stores. He also mentioned that he uses the internet for his billing, saying that it’s much easier to use the bank’s online service than having to drive in and talk to them. I asked him about watching TV shows online, but he said he doesn’t really do that since he can just use his DVR. The phone he has also doesn’t work very well with the internet since it’s so small and doesn’t utilize the 3G network. He’s pretty comfortable with the internet, but he said that he still goes to the phone book or newspaper for some information. When asked about how technology has changed his life, he said that it’s really made things a lot simpler than in the past. He mentioned how in the past he’s had to make a number of phone calls just to find the right manufacturer for a car part he needed, whereas now he can just go online, do a search, and find a retailer fairly easily. He thinks the internet has come a long ways from where it was over a decade ago, and that it will continue to grow and become more useful in our everyday life.

The last person I interviewed for the final generation was my grandfather. He’s been in the business world for quite a while and is used to computers, but they weren’t as big back then as they are now. He said that his main purpose for going online is to check his email. He said they only have dial up where he lives, so going online isn’t as convenient as it is to others. At his work, he uses computers, but he doesn’t go online for much since he’s just mostly just working with internal software. It seems like he’s fairly comfortable using the internet, but it’s not his main way of communicating or getting information. It sounded like he’d rather just use a phone to get what he needs. He said that having the internet has changed his life a little bit, but that it’s not really a big influence on his lifestyle. He said the internet is a good tool if you understand and know how to use it. But sometimes it can be a little difficult to figure out certain things, limiting how you’re able to use it.

When comparing these three generations, it’s pretty obvious that the older you get the less interaction you have with the internet. Although, I bet if the internet had been around, in the state it is today, back when my dad and grandfather were fairly young, it would have had more of an impact on their lives and they would probably have incorporated it into more of the things they do. In Postman’s latest chapter, he talks about how people become used to a certain method and fail to expand their way of thinking. But if he had seen how the internet has shaped into the way it is now, he would probably take back what he said and think about what he was actually saying. The internet gives us new ways to do stuff. It breaks the habit that we’ve become used to and adds new meaning to anything affected by it. My brother’s openness to the internet and latest technology shows how we can adapt to new methods of communication fairly quickly and that we aren’t always stuck in a rut when it comes to devising new ways to accomplish our objectives.

Looking at all three generations, each individual had their differences, but all were in agreement that the internet is something that has had at least some kind of beneficial impact on their lives and that it will continue to shape our future in the years to come.

 

Virtual Communities

I’m a big Volkswagen fan and love the cars they make. My family owns a lot of VW cars and I also have two older GTIs. I had run across a forum a while back when I was looking for a solution to a problem I was having with my car, and that forum was VWvortex. This site is primarily for VW enthusiasts but its forum has way more than just car talk. When I was checking out the forums I noticed how many different areas they had and especially how many threads were posted in each. For example, on this VW enthusiast site, it has forums for health and fitness, fashion and apparel, and hiking and outdoors. Besides the fact that there were so many different forums you could go to on this one site, I was impressed with the number of replies and views a lot of the posts were getting. It was common to see a post get over a 100 replies, even over a couple thousand, accompanied with hundreds of thousands of views. It’s not often that you see that kind of activity on a site primarily focused for cars. After experiencing all of this, I figured since I have to join a community anyway, I might as well choose this one and see how it is.

So after creating my account, I decided that I wanted to just post in the car section, mainly the VW area, because this was the area that I knew best and I could be the most active in. I found a thread where somebody was asking about a wiring issue, so I figured that would be a good place to start. I didn’t know much about his scenario, but I suggested a few things that I thought would work. He made a comment later in the day, responding to my post and a couple of other people’s posts, pretty much just saying thanks and that he figured it out. After that I just started browsing more of the forums. Most of the threads I viewed were pretty informal and everything for some reason just felt really relaxed. There weren’t really any people shouting, cussing, or starting flame wars. It was just people of similar interests talking about various things and helping each other out.

I guess I would say I was accepted into this community when other people began to respond to my post that I had made. They make you feel very welcome and it just seems like there are a lot of nice people in that forum. I didn’t see too many disagreements, but if somebody didn’t like something that another had said, they would just express their thoughts, but not in an overly offensive way. This way of thought is completely different from other communities I’ve been to, like Digg or 4chan, where most of the people there would just ridicule you and not care what you thought.

This community easily met all four of the qualities of a virtual community that were mentioned in Wood and Smith (128). You can see the number of posts each user has made on their account and from looking at the ones in the threads I visited, most of the people there are very active. Most have 100s of posts on their account and they had been signed up with the site for over a year. And considering there were so many posts in every forum, I’d say that there are a number of different people that visit this site everyday looking for something to talk about. Since the site has so many different forums you can go to, there’s practically a place for everybody. I didn’t go to all of the sub-forums since there are so many, but of the ones that I did visit, the people active in them seemed very open- minded and considerate. And like I already mentioned earlier, a lot of the people in these forums have been here for a year or longer, most likely creating a number of relationships with other members in the community.

 

Sources

If I were to do a paper about cyberspace regarding what it is defined as and how it relates to our culture, I would try to find sources that were either written by somebody currently at an educational institution or by somebody that has had experience in the tech world and has studied the relationship in the past. When I find a source I first look to see how professionally looking the website is and whether it contains enough information the page to be considered useful. Some sites have only a paragraph of information and they don’t give much detail to what they say. These pages are good to get more background information about the topic you’re researching, but they aren’t the best sources since they don’t have much. I also look at the author’s name and if there’s any additional information given about them. The more I know about them and their history, the more credit I can give to their writing. If the article isn’t tagged by an author, I usually take a quick glance around the rest of the website to see how the other articles are presented and what they cover. This gives me a sense of what the site covers and what its expertise on the subject might be. I don’t always evaluate the actual source’s credibility unless it something doesn’t seem right. If the author has a title next to their name, I’ll assume they know what they’re talking about and just continue on.

Of the three sources that I found for my cyberspace paper, two were written by people at universities and the other is just a freelancer. The two sources written by the assumed professors were considered to be good sources primarily just from their names. I looked both articles over first before choosing them, although, being who wrote them and that they’re from a college website helped quite a bit in my decision making. The piece by the “unknown” author I questioned a little bit, since it had an animated gif at the top of the page, but the content that was written on the page was relatively good, so I ignored that the picture was there, even though it was really annoying. All three of my sources used cites throughout their articles and listed their sources at the bottom of the page. Using citations is also another key factor when considering sources and it adds value to what information is presented. It shows that the author really took a lot of time to write the piece and that they wanted others to look at it in a professional way. Most of the information in my sources is pretty believable because for the most part it’s all based on reality and how our culture has adapted to cyberspace. If I was the professor and a student of mine used these sources, I would consider them to have decent researching skills since they obviously took some time to find them. They didn’t just pick the first result off the search page, but actually reviewed a number of pages before choosing the ones they did.

My sources are:

Carl Dolman, Dr. Everett. “What is Cyberspace?.” Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base: Home Page. 10 Feb. 2009.
<http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aunews/archive/0203/Articles/WhatisCyberspace.html>.

Jones, Mike. “gyComputer Teolo, Cyberspace & Culturechn.” GarfNet. 10 Feb. 2009.
<http://www.garfnet.org.uk/new_mill/autumn97/sa.htm>.

Jordan, Tim. “Cyberpower: The Culture and Politics of Cyberspace.” Internet Society. 10 Feb. 2009.
<http://www.isoc.org/inet99/proceedings/3i/3i_1.htm>.

 

Letters

The two people I chose to write to were my aunt and my multimedia high school teacher. Both had a great influence on me when I was younger by getting me more involved with the computer environment and helping me learn more about them.

I decided to email my old teacher because I felt that that would be the best way to get a hold of her considering she has a busy schedule with the number of classes she teaches. This choice was a pretty simple one for me since it would be a lot easier for the both of us to communicate back and forth in this method than with an actual letter. And since she’s on a computer most of her day anyways, it’s even more of a convenience for her. When I wrote the email, I made it semi-formal for the most part. I still used proper grammar and punctuation, etc… but I wrote in a more laid back manner, kind of how we talked when we were in person. I hadn’t talked to her in quite a while, so it was kind of weird using a lot of informal words, but a mix of the two styles seemed to be the best. I thought that if it was too formal, then it would just be like a business email and that’s not what I wanted. Even though I was thanking her, I still wanted the email to have a personal touch to it. I think that having a personal letter in most cases is better than just a direct, formal email. They convey more meaning and they’re more like a real conversation face to face. The email I sent wasn’t that long, but longer than a normal email that I would generally send. It looked longer on screen than I think it actually would be if I were to print it out. I sent the email out in the evening, but she did reply the next day and we were able to do a little catching up, so it was nice.

For my aunt, the letter seemed to be an appropriate choice since I’m used to sending her cards all of the time. We talk back and forth through letters and emails off and on, so either method would have been fine here. For the letter I wrote in a pretty similar matter as the email, but maybe a little more formal in relation to the formatting of the letter. I used my normal language that I commonly use online with a laid back tone. I’d say the letter seemed longer, but it could’ve just been because I had to actually write it all out. She lives on the east coast, so I knew the letter would take a while to get to her and I didn’t expect an actual letter in return to get here in time. But surprisingly, she replied back on the instant messenger. We both use AIM, so I guess she figured that that way of communicating was the best way for her to get back to me.

In my opinion, hand written letters aren’t the best way to communicate in today’s world, just because of the fact that they can get lost so easily. I like to keep documents and letters for a long time so that I can go back and read them if I want to, but with a letter, it means I have to find a place to store it where I won’t lose it. And it then means I have the burden of carrying that letter around if I want to keep it. Whereas in email, I have multiple accounts forwarded to another couple of accounts, so everything is backed up and organized making it really easy for me to refer to something somebody sent me ages ago. In the reading they discuss the use of emoticons and how effective they are in portraying one’s thoughts. For the letter and email we wrote for this week, oddly enough, I didn’t use any form of emoticon or expression. It just didn’t seem like the right place to be using them, even though they could have been used. Emoticons, I believe, are better used on message boards and other semi-anonymous places where people don’t really know who you are and don’t know the way you speak and act. But if you’re speaking with somebody you know in real life, then it doesn’t matter as much, because they know how you actually are.

 

Social Networking

So I’ve had both Facebook and MySpace for quite a few years now and they’re a part of my life that I can’t really go without anymore. They allow me to connect with a lot of friends that I might not see on a daily basis anymore and even the ones that I see fairly often. If I don’t feel like calling somebody to talk, I can just send them a message or a comment and get caught up. And if the friend is an avid poster, they will probably have tons of pictures or status updates on what they’re doing or where they’re going so I guess technically you can find out what they’re up to without really talking to them, but that’s not always the case. But it’s always interesting to see what others write about themselves and what they choose to display on their profiles. Even some of your good friends that you’ve known for a number of years can surprise you with what they show.

My profiles on each site represent me in such a manner that I think is respectable. I try to avoid the party photos or any other kind of photo that could be considered questionable, especially if the company I was working at saw them. Even though I have my privacy options set to keep the photos hidden, you never know what might get out. I’d say that the photos posted on these sites are what really reveal a person to the outside world. I’ve become friends with a few coworkers and I thought I knew them somewhat well, but then getting a glimpse at their profiles and the pictures they have up, you wouldn’t think it’s the same person. They represent themselves in a totally different way online than from what I know them as in real life. They expose more of themselves and show a private side of that not everybody can see.

I don’t say anything that’s false on either of my profiles, but for certain things like which movies or tv shows do I like, I sometimes think about whether I should list the show or not. I think about what that show might say about me and whether it’d be a smart choice. Think about if you put that you really like watching The Girls Next Door versus watching Lost or Prison Break. Those are all fairly different shows and I’d say that The Girls Next Door could be inappropriate compared to the other two under certain conditions. I don’t watch any of those shows, but it just shows how what you say about yourself can really affect the way people see you.

The book talks about a number of things that can affect your online identity and one issue they address is pseudonymity. I’ve only known one person that falsely represented themselves to a degree that it was painful to even look at their profile. They made themselves out to be really “gangsterish” and posted lots of intimidating photos and used language that made them sound really dumb. I had known the person for quite a while before I had seen the profile, so I knew they weren’t like anything they said they were on MySpace. Needless to say, not too long after friending them, I decided to remove them because it was just too much and they way over did it.

 

Online

After watching the music video for Brad Paisley’s song “Online” you can see that a lot of stereotypes are used to convey the message. In a sense it makes the video more entertaining than it might have been otherwise but some people might take it the wrong way. There’s the nerd, the shy girl, rude jock, crazy parents, hot guy, and the hot guy’s chicks. It’s pretty much like a high school scene but it’s not really in a school setting.

So the main character that we follow throughout the video is an extreme nerd, who’s short, has a bald spot, wears glasses, lives with his parents still, works as a pizza delivery guy, drives an old beat up car, and is afraid to confront girls. In the lyrics it’s also mentioned that he has asthma and is a huge sci-fi fan that’s never been to second base. All of that pretty much describes the typical nerd that is portrayed in the movies and on TV and it makes the image instantly recognizable. After describing him and his lifestyle, the lyrics go on to say “But there’s a whole nother me that you need to see, go check out MySpace.” And then online, more specifically on MySpace, he turns into somebody that he’s not. It’s somebody that he believes is a lot “cooler” and wishes that he could be. This online persona is Brad Paisley and he’s a tall, good looking guy that drives a nice sports car and lives in Hollywood. The video goes back and forth between the nerd’s real life and his fantasy life online.

This video talks about how we can all become somebody different online and nobody would ever know if they never met you in person. Some people may only change a few things on their social profiles online to make them look better, but there are others that would change a lot and even manipulate images to reflect something they aren’t. Just because somebody puts it on their MySpace or Facebook page, doesn’t mean it’s completely true. I’ve read quite a few stories about people who have created profiles for dating sites and they didn’t accurately describe themselves and lied about their lives and how they really are. When those people were actually confronted and the truth was brought out, they were ridiculed for portraying somebody they weren’t. It also made it difficult for anybody to believe the rest of what that person said on their profile, even if the remaining was actually true.

Generally if somebody makes something up online and there’s no evidence to prove you wrong and they don’t know you personally, then nothing happens and people will assume you’re telling the truth. But if something comes up and you’re exposed, then the consequences can be catastrophic in both the online community and in real life if friends or coworkers were to find out.

New technology over the last decade has made it easier for people to act like somebody they aren’t and lead a different life online. It relates to how our communication has been shaped by the Internet and how people are adjusting to it because by going online, you have a clean slate from the real world and can technically be anybody or anything you want to be. Some people take advantage of this anonymity and abuse the way we communicate virtually with others. They represent a false image of themselves that they would most likely not do if the conversation were face to face. There is no control over this and it’s just an example of how we are all changed by emerging technologies.

Brad Paisley – Online (Official Music Video)

 

Abstinence

I never thought that going without any internet could be so difficult, but it truly is. Living without any form of internet contact, even though it was only for a day, can be excruciating to the point that you sometimes have no idea what to do to replace the time normally spent browsing hundreds of web pages. In today’s modern society it’s easy to see how difficult it would be considering how much we actually depend on it for everyday news and entertainment.

I personally am a computer-holic. If it can be reasonably accomplished using a computer, I’ll avoid the alternative and do it on a computer. The ease and convenience of using one is just too much to say no to. I get almost all of my news from reading articles online and watching various video clips from here and there. Rarely do I ever read a newspaper anymore, except for the Barometer occasionally, and I only watch the news on TV if there’s something local that I find interesting and if it catches my eye in one of the commercials they air every couple of hours. There are so many sites that I visit on a daily basis to see what’s new in the world that it’s tough to go without that information even for such a short period of time. Even though everything I read is online and it’ll still be available the next time I have internet access, it’s just not the same… at least to me it’s not the same.

Apart from all of the news sites, there are quite a few blogs and other tech sites that I visit. Checking in with all of these sites everyday can consume quite a few hours depending on how “juicy” the stories are or if it’s something that really sparks an interest in me. Not to mention the time I spend on Facebook and MySpace. I think we all know how carried away we can get with those two sites, and nothing more needs to be said.

So on my day of internet abstinence, I chose a day that would make it the easiest on me, and being that I work on Thursdays, that was my day of choice.So being able to kill seven hours just like that and then having to be in class for another couple of hours right after made my day a lot easier to handle.After I got out of class though was when the real issues began to arise. I had to figure out what I would do for the rest of the night and so I ended up just watching a few shows on TV and then I decided to go see the Curious Case of Benjamin Button with a few friends. Since I couldn’t go online, I had them check the times at fandango for me. That was kind of an inconvenience but they didn’t seem to mind. Since that movie was so, so long I was already a little tired when I got home and didn’t have the energy to do much after. I ended up watching some more TV and reading a few magazines, but after that I just crashed.

Being that I killed a lot of time with work, school, and movies, my day of abstinence was relatively easier than it normally would have been. But not being able to check my email or going to any of the sites that I always visit was still pretty difficult. Being without any internet for a whole day makes you realize how much you really spend on it and what else you could be doing or what you’re missing out there outside of the walls.