Recording how I used my phone in a 48 hour period with a pen and paper provided me with an unusual insight to the relationship I have with my phone. It was difficult to remember to write down everything that I was doing on my phone in the moment in the notebook. I actually used my phone’s notepad to write down my notes on what I was doing on my phone and then transcribe it to the notebook. Other times when I purely recorded the activities in my notebook right away, I sometimes forgot what I was doing and would move onto something else. If the idea was reversed, I feel like my homework time would be more productive until I had to use my phone to take notes of what I was doing. I think that I would start to do my homework and then get distracted more easily while taking notes because I would have more information available to me on my phone and people to distract me. I also feel that I would have much less to take notes on because there are limits with a pencil and paper that don’t exist with phones.
How I used my phone, how many times I used the space on my phone, and length of time:
Twitter: 3 33 mins
Text: 11 5 hrs 6 mins
Phone Call: 2 1hr 15mins
StumbleUpon: 2 35 mins
Alarm: 7 8 mins
Shuttle: 1 1 min
GPS: 1 10 mins
Target: 1 5 mins
Recorder: 2 45 mins
Spotify: 1 30 mins
Snapchat: 4 42 mins
Total Hours: 9 hrs 50 mins
Total interactions: 35
Types of Interaction:
Social: Phone Call: 30 mins, Recorder: 45 mins, Snapchat: 42 mins,
Textual: StumbleUpon 35 mins, Alarm: 8 mins, Shuttle: 1 min, GPS: 1o mins, Target app: 5 mins, Spotify: 30 mins
Both: Texting: 5 hrs 6mins, Twitter: 33 mins
What I was doing at the time of using my phone:
Homework 5
Waking up 3
Getting ready for class 2
Waiting before class 4
Class online (ctpf) 1
Walking to class/work/home 6
At work 4
In the car 1
Shopping 1
Watching TV 3
Laundry 3
Talking to a friend 2
To write with the one pen and small notebook definitely made me feel limited. The architecture of the notebook restricted me from writing big and it made it a lot easier to misplace. I think that this lack of flexibility made me aware of what was available to me in my everyday life. For example, I have an Android phone and not an iPhone so when I text people it is not an iMessage which annoys my roommates.
I have always considered myself as a person that does not use my phone that much, until this assignment. I have not altered my phone usage in any way because of this assignment and after learning that others have, maybe the results are not as comparable. Even though this assignment was for a 48 hour period and others did not record their usual activities, I was surprised that I had so many interactions with my phone. I think that my phone usage was majority of text conversations which is a space that demonstrates participatory culture. Many text conversations are not just texts they hold more than one level of information. A friend can text me a picture from a social media site that they saw and we might have a conversation about it. This conversation could lead me to telling another friend later who could go onto this social media site and like the picture or share it themselves. I think that being digitally literate includes knowing how to use computers, phones, and other technology as a network. I would use StumbleUpon app on my phone and then if I wanted to read an article later, I would save the page and open the website on my laptop so it would be easier to read.
I think people become too reliant on their phones and the information that they can receive from it. If I am in a conversation, and I cannot think of someone’s name that was in a TV show that I watch, I would simply use my phone to look it up. Instead of using my brain to work through it, I cheat myself of using my head and use my phone instead. I have also used my phone for simple math in the past as well as setting alarms for things that I should remember. I think that our minds are so preoccupied with information that is presented to us every day that simple things that we used to do with ease, have now become something we rely on technology for.