Response to "Disconnected"

"Disconneced" Response

The work performed by the students in the “Disconnected” documentary was extremely eye opening. I was stunned by the students’ abilities to completely disconnect themselves from computer technology for weeks, especially during the middle of the school year. For me, life without a computer would be extremely difficult just as it was for the three students featured in the documentary. Being forced to go throughout their daily lives without a computer forced the students to find new and innovative ways to accomplish goals and spend their free time, an obstacle all of us could learn a thing or two from. This is a challenge mainly due to the heavy dependability we have with computers. Now days, it seems computers have become integrated into our lives and are simply a way of life that we almost can’t escape from.


People tend to rely so heavily on computers that the thought of giving up the technology for even a day seems nearly impossible. In my opinion, there is almost no way to get around or accomplish certain things without the use of a computer in today’s world.  As we saw in the video, the students struggled to find ways to complete online course assignments and even figure out a way to clock in for their student payroll.  I cannot imagine the difficulty of not being able to quickly upload an assignment, email my questions or concerns to professors, or not having a word processing program at my fingertips, not to mention the sense of withdrawal I would feel. I found parts of this documentary to be humorous in the way the students dealt with the challenges of not having computer access. For example, the students had to go to such extremes as to duct tape their computers closed or hide their computers from themselves, although I would likely have to do the same.
         
In the end , I believe that limited computer access increases the amount of free time you have giving you the chance to do other, more important activities. There is a valuable lesson I have learned by this documentary, and that is we really do not need computers as much as we may think, life will go on without them and there are other ways of accomplishing tasks. In the future, I would consider attempting to have a computer free day to reinforce how much can be done without the dependence on computers.