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Puddle jumping, painting, reading, fairy hunting in the woods… what are you missing out on by being glued to a screen (TV and computer) most days? One Offbeat Mama decided to find out what life has in store BEYOND Facebook, email, Pinterest, and television by implementing “No Media Mondays.”
In the back of my head there was that nagging guilt of having [my daughter] see my daily media use. Is it the worst thing in the world? No. But would I want a teenage version of her spending as much time attached to a screen as I do? Absolutely not.While I’m not quite ready to give it up altogether, I decided to make a change in my habits at least once a week. I started No Media Mondays in our house. This is a day once a week that we completely unplug. My computer is never opened, the TV stays off, and though I keep my phone on me for safety reasons, I don’t use it for anything other than that. Even my car radio is turned off and replaced by my terrible singing voice or just talking. It was a scary prospect. You really don’t think about the time that you spend — five minutes here, 10 minutes there — using electronics. A day without media doesn’t seem totally overwhelming, but when faced with the actual reality of it, it seemed uncomfortable.
You know what? It wasn’t as hard as I thought.
Head over to Offbeat Mama to read the rest. And then tell me — are you inspired to start a No Media day of your own? I’m not gonna lie: the thought is super tempting.
When our son was born, we got rid of our TV and Internet. Those were the most productive years of my live, ever.
Omg, NO INTERNET!?
Yeah, we went to the library a couple of times a week to check email and all that. It’s interesting what you can cut out when you have to walk a half mile to the library to spend a timed 30 minutes on the Internet!
I find it super funny that my old room picture is being used to illustrate this, as I’m pretty sure I haven’t been disconnected from media for more than a few hours in my entire adult life, lol.
HA HA! I feel you on that. 😉 And seriously, thank you for uploading it to the Flickr pool. … “Old room” huh? Does that mean you have NEW rooms for us to peek at. 😉
I will soon! 🙂 Moving into a beautiful old historic apartment building in Chicago next month – Charlie Chaplin used to live there and the first Chucky movie was filmed there! I’m super excited.
OH MY GOD THAT SOUNDS SO EXCITING HI please say we get to see this yes???
🙂 I’m planning on it! All I gotta do is drive across country with my harp and my rats, move in, get everything set up perfectly, take pictures and submit a tour in the 1.5 weeks between me leaving country and starting law school. It’ll be fun.
I think I may do a no media monday, although I’m online all day at work, it would be nice to unplug when I get home. There have been a few nights when my husband and I sit on the balcony nd just talk, he plays guitar, and I crochet.
My goal – with varying degrees of success – has been “No Media While the Sun is Up” to try to encourage me to take advantage of the beautiful summer weather and activities. During winter this won’t really mean much, of course. And I still have to be on my computer all day at work regardless. But it’s a start, right? 🙂
I was wondering how I could manage something like this, being online and on the computer at work all day myself, but “No Media While the Sun is Up” sounds totally reasonable once I’m out of work … it’s only a couple hours by the time I get home, but it’s something!
Hmm… I would love to do this. I already have a day a week where I don’t work at all – no grading papers, no writing, no blogging, no reading the news (it actually helps me be MORE productive on my work days!). Maybe it would be good to make that a no media day too. But does an e-reader count as media if it’s not connected to the Internet and I’m just reading books on it? I would need something to do!
An e-reader is simply a more compact replacement for a book so I would consider that to be a-ok with no-media Monday, not to mention that you can create the rules for this.
Maybe you have a no TV day, or a no computer day or a no internet day. Whatever floats your boat.
I love this idea. I wouldn’t be able to achieve this at work, but time at home could definitely be unplugged more. I just moved and had difficulty getting my internet and cable turned on so I ended up being without any internet or tv for 3.5 weeks. At first it was refreshing and I got SO much done, especially in a new place. By the end of the second week though I felt like I was going CRAZY, I’m on the internet all day at work but not in a capacity that I can catch up on personal things and whats happening in the world so I felt extremely out of the loop and disconnected. lol one day a week, love it. 3 weeks in a row, not again 🙂
We kind of accidentally have no media sundays! It started with me just not wanting to be on the computer on my day off and then slowly moved towards tv and game stations to, we call it ‘Day of Awesome’
To each their own. I don’t find electronics/media to be a bad thing. Everything in moderation. I read on my Kindle now instead of books, I chat with my mom while playing words with friends, I text my sons when they’re not home. These things aren’t keeping me from the world, it’s keeping me connected even more. I do these things in addition to conversations, going to movies or fairs or blueberry picking. Right now, my two older teen sons are in one bedroom playing an online computer game, each on their own computer. Teen brothers spending time together talking and playing….unheard of! With the help of a game, they are actually bonding more than they would otherwise.
Mr. Moon and I always end up having at least one day a week where we are too busy to spend much time online at all. But I’m finding I sleep better if we watch one episode of TV right before bed. It is the only thing that I’ve found allows me the opportunity to wind down enough to not worry myself awake all night. Too many times I’d be reading and realize I had no idea what was going on in my book because I’d been worrying too loudly in my head.
I think I could commit to a “no media Oneday” each week. Ultimately though, it would be “no media except my Bedtime Story,” and it would mean that Mr. Moon and I can’t go see a movie on his days off–he gets free movies right now and about one day off a week, so I definitely don’t want to give up our free dates!
Sounds wonderful. But I suspect the BF might leave me if I tried that. ^^
I don’t think I could do this – at least not in my current situation. My SO and I are long distance and therefore communicate over Skype. I’m also temporarily in a city where I don’t know anyone but as I’m leaving in a month, I don’t want to make friends right now.
However, I could try to do a “no media but Skype” day.
We already gave up meat on Mondays…how about Sundays?? 😀