Approach:
I had been looking at this task as least a couple weeks wondering if it was possible if I could do it. Like a number of you I have a job that requires constant e-mails, phone calls, and IM. The problem was not getting the time off, so much as it was that I believed that after years of communicating this way that I had become addicted, or perhaps naturally adapted to believe that electronic communication was the norm.

n. com•mu•ni•ca•tion (k -my n -k sh n)

5. communications A means of communicating, especially:
a. A system, such as mail, telephone, or television, for sending and receiving messages.

I interpreted this to mean no transmission devices: telephone, cell phone, broadcast or cable television, broadcast radio, internet, satellite phones, beeper, pager, atm or debit card machines (which are tied into a phone line), gps equipment, Wi-Fi, etc.

How in the hell would I survive without my GPS equipment and my satellite phone?

DAY 1: Coping with Boredom

I got sick last Friday, and I figured that God had struck me down with this unseasonable cold so that I would set out to do this task. And so it began.

I took money out of the ATM, bought some Nyquil, and went back home and didn’t use electronic communications starting at 9am Friday morning.

I read a book instead.


Then I watched four movies (or parts of movies): A Simple Plan, Days of Being Wild, Friday Night Lights, and King Kong. I went to sleep halfway through King Kong, or as I like to call it: The Longest Fucking Movie Ever Made.

DAY 2: Maintaining Social Contact

I woke up the following morning and made coffee and didn’t immediately log onto the internet. I didn’t log onto the internet at all. I sat down and watched the last 12 hours of King Kong with my girlfriend, and tried not to think about electronic communications. I was beginning to feel better, so I thought I’d try to get a hold of somebody by just dropping by unannounced and seeing if they were there. If they weren’t there I guess I would just go back home and proclaim that a social life is impossible without a cell phone. It was an experiment.

Not much of one apparently. They were there.

We went to Zietgiest where we met up with Josh. So, here it was. A different kind of proof. One could get in touch with people without – everybody say it – electronic communications, and not necessarily have to be condemned to a life of isolation.

Later on that evening we all went over to Colby’s apartment and met up with Cameron, Allison, Jones, and Amber Carson Miller. We all drank and played a tedious board game called ZOMBIES!!!

DAY 3: Communicating Through Non-Electronic Means

Before I had left his apartment the previous night, Cameron had mentioned that he was going to Fritjas in the Hayes to meet Britt for lunch today. I decided against it, opting instead to go to lunch with Helen to Bocce in North Beach. Unable to call him and tell him not to com over, I wound up leaving this courteous note.

Trying to keep the theme going later on in the day, the only other non-electronic form of communication I could think of was writing a letter. So I sat down for an hour and a half and wrote two: one my friend Chris Coughlin in Phoenix and another one to Senator Barbara Boxer, asking her to support Ned Lamont.


By this time, I was kind of wondering who was calling my phone or e-mailing me and was it anything important. Despite the fact that I was enjoying this reprieve from my devices, I was looking forward to the other half of the task. I thought it was bound to be a cakewalk, considering that I was just going back to the way I was before, but just being more excessive about it.

Later on that evening I wrote another task, based on this one called: Shut It Down! In which the player isn’t allowed to use electricity for 24 hours. It kind of a more draconian version of this section of the task.

DAYS 4-6: Hypercommunication

These three days were a condensed blur, so it seems appropriate to write it that way.

I started the day off with this E-mail as soon as I got to work at 9am.

Here are the Numbers:

9 phone calls totaling 5 hours of use. 74 outgoing e-mails...

...7 text messages. I always use instant messenger for work. I left MySpace comments and wrote several e-mails through that site. I used the internet for a fair amount, somewhere between 9-12 each day...

...And for the last couple hours on Wednesday night Helen and I spoke to one another almost exclusively through walkie-talkies while watching a reality show on TV.

This represents more than four times my normal use of electronic communication. And it was a fairly overwhelming part of this task. The result of these last three days was time absolutely wasted. After a certain quantity was passed, communication brought down to the level of constant small talk, chitter chatter, where ultimately nothing was being communicated at all. The more I communicated, the less that was communicated.

I don’t have any particular insight into that. Just pointing out an observation.

My conclusion. For those of you who are wondering what the worst part of this task was I have a solid unsatisfying answer for you: it was both. Forcing myself to use the phone or write an e-mail was the just as bad as not having them. I’m sure many of you have tendencies away from electronic communication, but still I think you would find it annoying not to answer a telephone or get directions off of the internet. During the first three days I was trying to keep myself from being bored. And the last tree days was a manic rush of communication. Neither was very satisfying. There is no moral to this story. This was a much more difficult task than I had anticipated, and I’m very happy that I don’t have to do it again.
I will be interested to hear how other people cope with this task in the future.