A day without Technology. . Can ya do it?

I woke up this morning determined to have a day without technology. However, as it is so naturally to do, I sprung out of my bed in the morning and looked through my texts that I had received during the night. Already broke the challenge! I then tried to go the rest of the day without technology. 

I did not text today as I was focused when I was at my internship, so was not able to be more distracted. That helped me get through the goal of cutting down technology. However, at my internship I did have to email. They did not take my excuse that I was doing a challenge to not use technology as a reason to stop getting business down with businesses of Bellingham.

I did not skype today! I actually thought about it, and then shut my mind up! I figure there is plenty that I can do besides skype, and I am sure my friends in France (the only reason why I use skype) were not on anyways. So I proudly and easily did not use skype.

As today consisted of me sleeping in (till 11!) then interning for five hours, it was an easy day to avoid using technology. I left my ipod at home accidentally, which worked out for me not jamming to music throughout the day. What did I use to replace technology?

I slept. And I met with business leaders, having a busy day. Today was a good day to not use technology, as I do not think I could last through a normal busy school day on Tuesday or Thursday without using the internet or checking in with a friend via phone. Additionally I had a friend come over for a little happy hour of cookies and wine with me, which was just as (if not more) fulfilling then using technology. 

I can't believe I almost went through a whole day without using technology (except this post, etc.). I do not feel any more or less connected with others, as I was busy today. I am sure tomorrow will be filled with text messages catching up with my friends that I did not type to today.

Sixth Sense

In the video of Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo of their "sixth sense", it is believed that the Six Sense technology will "help us to stay human" by the creator, I find it the opposite. Although there are positives to the Six Sense technology, I see it as making us turn into walking computers. I feel that if we rely on a system to recognize objects, etc., we will become less reliant on our own observation. While the photo function and such seemed cool with the Six Sense technology, the idea of using this all of the time is a bit daunting to me. It scares me as it can increase the amount of laziness that the American people have. I hope this is not what my future will be like! I believe we are tuning out the physical beauty of the world and computerizing it with this technology. While I believe we are moving closer to living digitally, I do not see it in a positive manner.


Whe listening to Pranav Mistry talk about the thrills of the Six Sense made it understandable to see how he created the technology of Six Sense. His idea behind why he wanted to create the Sixth Sense technology was to bring the physical world into the digital world. I feel as though he was successful with his goal of making the physical world a digital one, yet I do not understand why he wanted to create a more digital world. I feel as though there is a place for digital world and a place for enjoying the physical, natural world. They do not always need to combine! I hope that the technology of Six Sense does not become how our world works in the near future.

Week Six Blog

Online website building seems to be a lot easier when you have a starter website to start from. I have tried using wix and weebly, and they have seemed to make the creation of a website a lot more simple with possible layouts already created by the websites.

With weebly, we tried making our website a few weeks ago. It seemed a bit confusing and not like a website that makes it easier to create your own page. The creation of things, such as fonts and pictures on the website were difficult to move around on weebly. We felt like we were stuck in a box (of where we could place pictures, etc.) on weebly, and ran away as fast as possible from that site.

With wix, we have had more flexibility. The layouts were fun and applicable to our topic, and adding pictures of our own was pretty easy to figure out. There was nothing too difficult about editing our wix website, and I feel like this is a site base that I woudl return to if I want to make another personal website. This link gives the basics of how to make a wix website correctly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzTWG1fJgbI .

Another site creator example is moonfruit.com. This site seems to be more at my scale, as it is created for a person who does not have technological knowledge. This is known to be a simple creator of websites, and is based out of the UK. I believe you should use a british accent while creating a website made from moonfruit.

This video explains the idea of moonfruit. http://youtu.be/S4BcfjzHpe4

I feel that communication via technology is necessary in our current technological world that we are living in today. It is fun to add fun picture to give it a personal touch.

Our Constantly Changing Social Media

According to Malcolm Gladwell, the world is in a constant midst of a revolution. Social media, according to Gladwell, encourages the growth of the revolution to make positive changes in our environment. An example of that is the people of Iran using Twitter to stand up and fight for both freedom and democracy (Small Change, Gladwell). I am in agreement with Gladwell when believing that the activism that is taken place because of social media is a  good thing for the future of the world. However, while social media and activism is a positive thing, I also see social media as being intimidating to the communication habits of the people in the world.


The speed that the internet and social media has grown is outstanding. As Eric Qualman said, "We don't have a choice whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it" (The social Media Revolution, youtube). I agree with Qualman, as the world is growing and changing and social media is a way that we can keep the people tied together. However, how well each individual uses social media to get across their ideas or goals can be overwhelming. The fact that IPads are gaining in popularity, almost more than books is a scary thing to me. I believe in classics, and I do not look forward to having a machine be able to store all this information on me. While I understand that the growth of social media is unstoppable, I am scared that by the time that I have children it will take over their lives. I always dream to live on the water, and give my kids the outdoors to play in rather than video games. We will see how much social media and technology grows in the next few years, but frankly I am scared. The constant checking of social media networks is something that is addicting, yet I believe unhealthy.