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Device-Free Experiment Gone Awry!
So, over the Christmas holidays, my family and I began an experiment where we would go device-free for one day a week. In the beginning, I saw the withdrawal on my teenage children’s faces, and my husband was just as bad. A month later, we started to notice patterns within our activities on how so much of our lives actually revolved around the internet. (Stationary lists for the school were online.)
We’re now at the beginning of March 2019, and the experiment has gone completely awry!
Traditional vs Self-Publication: The argument has flipped.
There was a time when the world at large looked down their noses at anyone who self-published, like the writing was sub-par. In many ways, it was. In those early days of Amazon and Kindle, self-publishing was so easy. Getting your book out into the world was just a matter of uploading your file to the internet and clicking on a few buttons. You didn’t even need to pay a dime, if you didn’t want to. As such, everyone from the dog to the neighbor was self-publishing—and the world became flooded with books, many of which should have never been published when they were.
The market is still flooded with sub-par self-published books, but things have moved on. With the changes that have occurred within the industry as a whole, the quality of the self-published works has gone up and the ability to get traditional publication contracts have dramatically become harder. And the attitudes about self-publication have now flipped and the stigma is now attached to the traditional roads.
For someone like myself, it is exciting times, to see these transformations within the publishing industry. However, the shift in attitudes actually make my blood boil at times—but not because of where the stigma now lies, but because of the way people treat me when they discover that I’m determined to go down the traditional route with my fiction.
We Let Strangers Into Our Lives
For the last few years, I’ve been writing crime thrillers. Thinking in the head of a bad guy can be liberating. Not sure when these stories of mine will be published (the publishing industry really is a hurry-up-and-wait industry), but I keep pressing forward, and continue to write stories where the bad guys come after us in ways that we are all subject to.
I always wanted the novel to be a cautionary tale about oversharing on social media and the internet. The more I delve into various aspects of internet security, the more I get excited—and scared.
I’m excited, because I know exactly how my serial killer is finding his victims—how he’s stalking them. And I also know how he has managed to elude capture for over twenty years. As the writer of this creepy tale, this is fantastic. However, it also scares me, because I’m consciously aware that there will be some sicko out there doing exactly what the bad guy in my story is doing.
I’ve decided to start this blog series on social media and internet security on my personal blog in the hopes that at least one person out there will take notice and start to examine their own practices. If my ramblings can save just one person from becoming the victim, then I’ll be over the moon.
A Month Into the Device-Free Experiment
It’s been just over a month since my family started this device-free experiment. Each week seems to have presented a different set of challenges, along with some further insights into how the internet and technology has changed our lives. Things have been said that make me cringe, but when I take a step back and really look at what we’re doing, those comments really are a slap in society’s face.
Let me just further build this picture for you.
I started this little device-free experiment, turning off the internet and the devices for one day a week, because my children seemed to be sinking themselves into computer games and Netflix, and I didn’t like it. That first week was incredibly difficult for them. (It was difficult on my husband too.) But I pushed through…
The weeks that have followed have tales of their own.
End of an Era. Goodbye to ConvoScience.
It was an incredibly hard decision to make, but I’ve decided to bring the radio podcast ConvoScience (or Conversations in Science, as some know it) to an end. There were many different reasons behind this decision, the biggest of which is a refocus on priorities.
I’m a writer. I’m an editor. I do have knowledge that I like to share, but I should be writing!
Saying that, this is NOT the end of the science from me. Science is in my blood. It’s a part of who I am and my family. I have always had a way of explaining science in a way that others can understand, so that is NEVER going away. Instead of talking it out, I’ll just write it.
Device-Free Days: It’s an Experiment
I’ve noticed that both of my children seem to have an aversion to reading. This is not something that I like to see, especially considering I’m a writer and editor, but I do understand it.
My 17-year-old son spends almost all of his free time playing computer games, either on his computer or 3DS. My 13-year-old daughter seems to be obsessed with Netflix and YouTube (and the movies on the hard drives or discs). Whenever I suggest to either one of them that they read a book, they just roll their eyes at me and chill out in their own fashion.
My husband and I aren’t much better. Every morning, my hubby is on his phone, surfing the internet and watching C-SPAN… or playing a game… or watching anime. And I spend a significant amount of time either on the computer or the tablet, writing or editing (and talking to my writing partner in the US via video chat).
So, I had the idea of going device free for one day a week: no smart phones, no tablets, no computers and no TV — and certainly NO INTERNET. The only exception to this device-free rule is Kindles — simply because not all books are in paper formats. Besides, have you ever tried to surf the internet on a Kindle? (I’m not talking about the Kindle Fire. I’m talking about the traditional Kindle that is an eBook reader only. They have an internet browser, but talk about frustrating in the extreme.)
To start encouraging the good reading and other non-technology-based habits, my husband and I decided to do this once a week, every week. We’re only one week down, and have encountered some interesting results.