Day 3: Christmas Eve. I'm not feeling quite as connected to the world as I hoped. I went to eat tonight at an establishment that had around 6 big screen tv's. They were all sports networks but I still stared throughout my meal. Last night I was up till very, very late and, though I slept peacefully and woke without stress, I still wish for a normal sleep schedule. I didn't even do anything that interesting. I watched Friends for 6 hours and played solitaire on my computer. Meanwhile I did not do the laundry I have had set aside for 3 days. This is my present dilemma, as I feel I should enforce a complete technology blackout for the span of this experiment. That is impossible because I am a computational physicist. Computers are my job. I love technology, not just using it but modding it, tweaking it, and fixing it. But clearly I have to establish some sort of boundaries on its use. Considering all the other non-tv things there are that I actually enjoy but never do, such as arts, crafts, music, cleaning, exercise, exploring, and others, that time I spent watching shows I have already seen a dozen times and playing one-person cards cannot have been six hours well spent. Besides, I like tv and movies and don't think there is anything inherently wrong with them. I think I have come up with a compromise though; rarely do I actually watch television. Its usually a background activity while I'm doing something else. When I say rarely, I mean almost NEVER, as in about ~1% of the time. As a compromise I have decided to limit myself to television only if I am actually watching, and not as a multitask in combination with another mindless activity (like solitaire). Considering how hard it is for me to sit still, this restriction should be pretty effective.

PS. I have another post brewing detailing the psychological differences I have noticed, but Its only been three days, so I want to wait a little longer for the effects to coalesce. I also plan to talk about my views on privacy issues. That wasn't a major motivation for this experiment but it is a great consideration when talking about tech in general and I plan to take steps to secure my privacy during this experiment, looking ahead to when I may be back to tech again.