Shannon Meyer, a teacher in Los Angeles who is part of Mosaic, challenged her high school students to fast for seven days from all television, iPods, videos games, cell phones, and computers. During their fast, they wrote in journals about their experience.
Steven Lopez wrote an article in the LA Times about this unique assignment. He reports:
“Detox hasn’t been easy for these BlackBerry babies. They were born into a digital world of wireless links, with headphones where their ears should have been. Meyer, trying to teach them something about true connectedness and solitary reflection, asked them to go cold turkey and take notes. With pen and paper….
Centuries from now, however, anthropologists will look back on this experiment in human suffering and note some significant breakthroughs:
Daniel Romero read a book for the first time this year.
Jenny Corona connected with her autistic brother, and, to her utter amazement, read an entire Harry Potter book in four days.
Without her headphones blocking out the real world, Flor Salvador heard strange chirping sounds. ‘I didn’t know we had birds!’ she wrote in her journal.”
I am always amazed at what there is to see when I take the time to see it….
For more: read the article when the fast began and the article when the fast ended.