A Day Without a Computer...I Survived

At first I was afraid, I was petrified. Kept thinking I could never live without it by my side. But as it turns out, going an entire day without turning on my computer didn’t kill me. I did survive.

The date was November 7, 2015. It was a Saturday just like any other Saturday in Chandler, Arizona—sunny skies; highs in the 70s; birds chirping; scorpions scurrying. It was all very ordinary, except for one thing—at no point that day did I turn on my computer. I didn’t flip open my laptop. Didn’t press the power button. Didn’t enter my password. And most importantly, I didn’t surf the internet. No checking my email. No scrolling through my Facebook feed. No tweeting or retweeting. No randomly searching Wikipedia or the IMDb. Just digital silence.

And for those of you thinking, “Big deal! Who needs to turn on their computer to do any of that stuff anyway? You just use your phone for all that,” I should let you know that I never use my phone for any of that. Yes, I’m about a decade behind when it comes to electronic technologies. My iPhone is certainly capable of doing any of those things, but I don’t use it in that way. Mostly I use it as a phone, a camera, or a paperweight.

And so it was that I spent an entire day without looking at my computer screen. More than a day, really, since I went from about 11:00 pm on Friday, the 6^th until about 8:30 am on Sunday, the 8^th without booting up. That’s 33.5 hours for those of you doing the math at home.

When I finally turned on my computer on Sunday morning, I wondered what kind of world would await me. Would cats have evolved to be winged-creatures? Would purple now be the new black? Would the Donald Trump presidential run all have been an elaborate prank that culminated with his appearance on SNL? (One can dream, anyway.)

As it turns out, nothing particularly earth-shattering seems to have occurred during my computer hiatus. I had 45 new emails in my inbox, of which I deleted 34 without opening. Of the eleven emails I did look at, the most important one informed me that my brother Mark’s 91^st favorite album of all time is Venus and Mars by Paul McCartney and Wings. Again, nothing earth-shattering. (Had it been 90^th instead of 91^st that would have been earth-shattering.)

On Facebook, I missed the birthday of three friends. But unless any of them keeps an Excel spreadsheet of their birthday greetings, I doubt they would have noticed that I didn’t post amongst their hundreds of well-wishers. But just to be safe, happy birthday to Michele, Kevin and Joanna!

And as for Twitter, I gained one follower in my absence—someone I never heard of named Ali Spagnola. I’m guessing she’s someone famous because she has one of those blue “verified account” symbols next to her name. Why she decided to follow me, I have no idea, but given that she follows 1.78 million people, I’m not going to take it to mean that we’re going steady.

So what did I learn from this grand experiment? Was it worth it to not be tapped in to our cyber society for an entire day? And will little Billy be rescued from the well? This and all more on the next exciting episode of As the Days of Our Lives Turns into the Shadow Knows. 

Is it Healthy to Take a Selfie?

Recently, a video of a bunch of sorority girls taking selfies at an Arizona Diamondbacks game went viral to the tune of more than 36 million views. (If you’re one of the few lucky people who haven’t seen it yet and feel you must waste the next minute of your life viewing this mind-numbing spectacle, click here.

When I saw this video my inner curmudgeon came raging to the surface with fists in the air and my old man voice in full tremble. “What’s wrong with these kids these days, with their cellphones and their picture taking and their obliviousness to the world around them? Why can’t they put that devil’s technology down and watch the perfectly wholesome baseball game going on right in front of them?”

Disgusted, I was! What kind of narcissist would ever desecrate the great American pastime by completely ignoring the game and taking a selfie? Then I thought back to the last time I was at a Diamondbacks game a couple months ago and remembered this:

Yep, apparently I’m the kind of narcissist who would desecrate the great American pastime by completely ignoring the game and taking a selfie. I could try to pawn off the idea on my son, but that would be a bald-faced lie. I thought to do it, I held the phone, and I pressed the button. So don’t aim your pitchforks at my kid—this is all on me.

Indeed, selfies are just the latest in a long line of technology-borne behaviors that I initially abhorred and eventually embraced (at first reluctantly and then enthusiastically.) First I swore I would never text, because you should just call somebody if you need to tell them something! Now I text. Then I swore I would never tweet because why in the world would people who I don’t know care what I’m thinking in 140 characters or less?!? Now I tweet. Then I swore I would never blog because I’m a real writer, dammit, and my work is supposed to appear on the printed page. Now I blog. And finally, coming back to the topic at hand, I swore I would never take a selfie, because I’m not a vapid, self-absorbed, vain, egomaniac who needs constant photographic evidence of my existence. Now I take selfies. 

In my defense, it’s not like I’m taking selfies on a daily basis. I could go weeks between selfies. In fact, I didn’t take one selfie in the entire month of September! That’s right, my last selfie was the one below, taken on August 31, 2015.

(Of course, that selfie was taken in a men’s room, which brings up a whole other range of psychological questions.)

Ultimately, I think the lesson to be learned here is that cultural norms change, especially when spurred on by new technology. Perhaps the thing to do is just roll with the punches and jump on board the technology train when it comes into your station. Unless, of course that train wants me to read books electronically, in which case I hope it derails, because the only way you would get me to let go of a printed book is by prying it out of my cold, dead hands.

Twitter Me This, Batman

I hate Twitter.  I love Twitter.  I want Twitter to die and go away.  I can’t live without Twitter.  Clearly, my relationship with this popular social networking site is giving me a touch of cyber schizophrenia.

When I first heard about Twitter I had already been using Facebook for about a year.  I heard about it (like I hear about pretty much everything happening on this planet—and beyond) on NPR while I was driving home from work one day about five years ago.  I remember thinking, “This is the most moronic idea for a website that I’ve ever heard.”  And I’ve heard plenty of moronic ideas for websites—many of which I came up with myself.

Facebook was a revelation; an idea at once so simple, yet genius.  Here was a way to reconnect with old friends, stay abreast of what’s going on in the lives of current friends, invite people to things without going through the disgusting routine of licking envelopes, and see pictures of cats grooming themselves in awkward positions.  What more could one want in a website?

But where Facebook seemed like a feel good love fest shared with all the people who have ever touched your lives, Twitter seemed like a narcissistic, ADD-inspired frivolity, hastily shared with strangers.  What could you possibly say of any importance in 140 characters or less?  And why would people who you’ve never met give a crap about what you have to say, anyway?

I ignored and/or mocked Twitter for a couple of years.  Then, sometime in 2010, I discovered that many people I knew and respected where not only using Twitter, but singing its praises.  “You can get breaking news instantly.”  “You can read witticisms from your favorite authors and actors.”  “You can share your ideas with the world.”  “You can see pictures of cats grooming themselves in awkward positions.”  Hmmm…eyebrow still raised, I decided to create a Twitter account in August 2010, just to see what all the fuss was about.

I didn’t see what all the fuss was about.  I followed some friends.  I followed some news outlets.  I read the innocuous tweets and didn’t really care.  Finally, on August 13, 2010, I decided to send my first tweet, which proved to be rather prophetic:

They say you never forget your first Tweet, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to forget this one.
— Andrew Schwartzberg (@AndrewofAZ) August 13, 2010

And Ironically, I did forget that one—until today when I decided to look at my first tweet for the purpose of this blog.  

I really wasn’t sure what I should make of Twitter, or how I should utilize it.  My first few tweets were all about tweeting, since the concept was new to me and I didn’t know what I was doing.  By my fifth tweet, on August 24, 2010, I decided to take the plunge and tweet about something other than Twitter:

How different would the world be if we all had yams for feet? Nike products would have a different look at the very least.
— Andrew Schwartzberg (@AndrewofAZ) August 24, 2010

This tweet—like my four other tweets before it—got no reaction from my 20 or so followers.  Had anyone seen it?  Did anyone care?  I had no idea. 

I was totally unenthused by the whole Twitter concept, and by the end of 2010 I tweeted all of eleven times.  In 2011, I tweeted just once:

My New Year's resolution is to tweet more often than once every three months. Now I'm good until early April.
— Andrew Schwartzberg (@AndrewofAZ) January 11, 2011

I got no response.

I tweeted:

I wish organ grinders would make a comeback. Not so much for the music, but because I love seeing a well-dressed monkey.
— Andrew Schwartzberg (@AndrewofAZ) September 19, 2012

Silence ensued.

I tweeted:

This Halloween I'm going to dig up some old clothes from the back of my closet and go as myself from four years ago.
— Andrew Schwartzberg (@AndrewofAZ) October 27, 2012

Crickets.

I realized that part of the problem was that I didn’t have very many followers, so not many people were seeing my tweets in the first place.  But I had no idea how to get more followers.  Every once in a while someone I didn’t know would suddenly seem to follow me.  How did they come across me?  Was it something I did?  Was it totally random?  Was this an actual person or some sort of sentient machine?  I had no clue.

Eventually, the general lack of response from the Twiiterverse became dispiriting and I stopped tweeting.  A few months later I started again.  Then I stopped.  Then I started.  And on and on.  But lately, I’ve become much more active on Twitter because I discovered the power of the hashtag.  (Another earth-shattering discovery, I know.)  While I knew about hashtags for years, I had no concept of how to use them.  Who creates the hashtags?  How does one hashtag become more popular than another?  Am I allowed to create a hashtag, or do I need to get permission from some sort of tribunal?  My attitude toward hashtags are best summed up by this recent tweet:

Dear Abby, I like Twitter but am still intimidated and confused by the concept of hash tags. #LeBronJames
— Andrew Schwartzberg (@AndrewofAZ) July 10, 2014

And yet, as I stumble across hashtags and start using them, I notice that more people have started “favoriting” my tweets and following me.  How or why these hashtags come to be I have no idea.  I came across one that was #HappyBatmanDay.  Was it Batman Day anywhere else in the world other than Twitter?  Who knows.  But I tweeted:

If Bruce Wayne gave his girlfriend a hickey would she need to get rabies shots? #HappyBatmanDay
— Andrew Schwartzberg (@AndrewofAZ) July 23, 2014

And somebody who I don’t know “favorited” my tweet and started following me.  It was a Twitter miracle!

I still think that the whole concept of tweeting is frivolous and narcissistic, but suddenly, over the past few weeks, I can’t stop doing it.  A couple of years ago I started using my Twitter account to promote my blog.  Now I find myself in the odd position of using my blog to promote my Twitter account.

Follow me at @AndrewofAZ.