My phone rang.
“I need you to do the technology
blackout,” my editor greeted me.
“No.”
“You’re perf—“
“No.”
“—ect for it, and we really—”
“No.”
“—need you to do it. Thanks.”
“I hate you.”
She hung up.
A new media blackout: no phone, no Internet, no computer — nothing for three days. My texting thumb started shaking. The withdrawals had already begun.
I rubbed my eyes. Fine. It was fine. No problem. How hard could it be?
Minute Four of No Technology: My phone pinged to let me know of an incoming text message. It was from a girl I had been pursuing, earnestly trying to convince her that I was worth spending the night with. I wasn’t, but she was gullible and I was good at lying.
The message said, “Come ovr 2nite.” I reached to respond, but heard my editor’s shrill voice sounding in my head, forbidding me. I began to cry. No sexting for me. I was in blackout mode.
Minute 11: My phone received three more text messages. I have not been this popular since eighth grade prom, when a bunch of kids mistook my bottle of DayQuil for Vodka and orange juice.
Minute 16: After texting the girl I like to let her know I’d be out of touch for a bit due to a technological abstinence assignment, I restarted the blackout.
Hour 1: My phone keeps pinging to alert me to the fact that I have seven emails awaiting me, two of which are from Facebook. I continue to cry. My nearby computer keyboard cries with me. The screen goes dark.
Hour 2: I remember that I haven’t updated my profile to include that movie I just saw. If I don’t do it now, people won’t know how trendy and hip I am. And if I don’t use my status to quote the movie, then no one will realize I have some serious depth to my soul. I resist the urge to lunge for my computer.
Hour 5: I know I need to distract myself, so I hunt for one of those old print-text-bound things: a book. The only reading material in my house though is my iPhone’s instruction manual. Somewhere Steve Jobs is laughing in his black shirt.
Hour 7: Without Facebook, I can no longer remember my own name.
Hour 14: I woke up with my phone in my hand and a game of Brick Breaker going. I don’t even recall picking my phone up, let alone using it. It appears that I have failed in my sleep. I now think that my high school gym teacher is narrating my life.
Hour 16: I go outside in order to escape the notifications from my phone. It’s hot and I want to know what temperature it is, but I can’t. I feel like my editor is punishing me. Abstinence and technology are two words that should not go together.
Hour 22: It’s been nearly 24 hours. To celebrate, a twitch has developed in my left eye. It complements the shaking of my texting thumb.
Hour 23: I AM NOT AMISH. I say this repeatedly into the bathroom mirror. By the fourth attempt, it comes out as a question. Then, I stop using the word “not.”
Hour 26: I have forgotten who my friends are. Without Facebook, how will I stay active in their lives by poking them and writing “Happy Birthday” once a year? How will I keep tabs on my exes to make sure they are not happier or cooler than I am?
Every second that passes strips me of another piece of my identity. The only name I remember with clarity is my editor’s. It reads a lot like Beelzebub. Steve Jobs continues to laugh inside my head.
Hour 31: I chewed off two fingernails. It was worth it. I refrain from tweeting about it.
Hour 39: After sleeping, I realized that my behavior over the last few days has been slightly ridiculous. I have given up pining for the Internet and instead I am now focusing on a revenge plan.
So far, I have the last step sketched out: my editor is cooked in a soup while I wear her tears for a hat and dance all night long with the baby who bit Charlie’s finger in that YouTube video.
Hour 44: I don’t know what the word “frangible” means. I want to just type it into a search bar, but instead I pick up a dictionary. I don’t even remember how to use one. I sob uncontrollably, missing Google like a lost lover.
I have been playing darts using a doodle of my editor as the bull’s eye. I have yet to hit the picture, but I have succeeded in breaking everything valuable in my room. I have memorized my iPhone’s instruction manual.
Hour 47: Something has changed. I feel… at peace. At one with the earth. I now revel in the absence of the devices that previously ran my life. This is purity. This is nirvana. I nearly understand the meaning of life, the purpose of it all, the one —
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
As the alarm sounds, letting me know my period of abstinence is over, I lunge for my phone, gibbering like an idiot. My first sent text message reads something like, “Ggghurrr, I’m back biatches.”
2 hours A.B. (After Blackout): I’m a bit embarrassed reading over my diary. Apparently I lost the ability to tell time, because what I thought was two days was actually only about nine hours.
In that time, I sent four text messages, checked my email twice, posted to Facebook six times and watched California Girls 19 times. (Katy Perry is too sexy for Sesame Street.) Longest amount of time passed without using technology? Twenty-six minutes.
3 hours A.B.: I text the girl I like: “Come ovr 2nite.” Abstinence, over.
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