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Magical Life Blog

 5)                                                                           November 23, 2017

Today commemorates the fifth and final day of my journey to attend to information overload. Reflecting back, some days were tougher than others, but overall the ‘ride’ was definitely worthwhile. By experiencing moments which I would have never gotten the chance to if it hadn’t been for INFOMAGICAL, I realized that although technology can be seen as a positive tool, there are many accommodating negative aspects that come along with it. There’s no doubt about the helpfulness and convenience of technology as information is now just a click away, yet when there’s an abundance of feedback retrieved from the world wide web, there arises an issue of what data is accurate and reliable. Therefore, it’s important for myself as well as many others to know when to step back from this excessiveness, to consider what info is viable, besides to acknowledge things other than social media, and that technology was invented to help us grow as individuals rather than just a means for us to unconsciously take advantage of. A great approach to technology is explained beautifully by Greg McOwen “if you try to do a bit of everything, then you’re going to end up making a millimeter progress in a million direction.” You can’t possibly keep up with everything going on online, so why not use that time to dedicate to your own interests and self-growth? In addition, from these past days, I also comprehended the importance of being able to live in the moment and knowing ones’ own boundary of privacy. Nowadays, people very so often glue themselves to their devices and missing out on opportunities to connect with people around, take billions of photos/videos of a show costed so much to attend although never looking back at them again, or  hurry to post something on their social media platform without really thinking things through, thus possibly leading to regret. So my mantra from now on is to always be cautious but at the same time live life to its’ fullest.

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Magical Connection Blog

  4)                                                                   November 22, 2017

Today marks the fourth day of my journey. And now, I am just one more challenge away from my “full” renovation of media use. The challenge of the day involved conversing with another person for at least seven minutes about something I’ve read, heard, or watched - a challenge which I presumed to be the most delightful so far. Although my prediction was right, there did certainly exist some unforeseen aspects such as awkward moments of silence as well as difficulty getting one’s thought across and understood. I think the reason for this is because that nowadays, it is often that one can forget that the very first and yet most important means of communication is speech. Arguably, this is something that people in this era, and especially millennials like myself face with way too often. One key player contributing to this, I believe, is the rise of virtual communication means such as text messages and social media. I say this base on my own experience as well as taking into consideration what I heard from others, that communication through social-oriented websites are a lot easier than face to face interactions. Reflecting back, there have been many times that I felt awkward and even stuttered when talking to others in real-life, whereas if I “talked” to them online, the flow of the chat would seem to never end  … Therefore, the challenge today was not necessarily hard, for me it was just the matter of what the topic of conversation was about and whom was I having that conversation with. So, I asked one of my best friends to help me out on this task. The topic of discussion was about a resurfaced trial from years before that I saw posted on Rihanna’s Instagram feed. It concerned the case of Cyntonia Brown, the teenage sex trafficking victim sentenced to 51 years in prison. Although the conversation was quite devastating, it was still very interesting as we both got to exchange our thoughts about whether justice was served and if so, to what extent. Because my friend and I come from different backgrounds, we had varying views, while some aspects coincided, others contradicted. Despite this, I felt that both of us got to broaden our knowledge about one another’s culture in general, as well as opening our perspectives on Cyntonia’s case in particular. From this I think that talking face to face with someone isn’t the intimidating part, it is the fear of misspeaking or of being disagreed with. Thus, we should all try and communicate without “filters”, without edits, and when doing so it is always important to be able to hold one’s ground whilst respecting others’ in spite of any differences.

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Magical Brain Blog

  3)                                                                    November 20, 2017

Back at it again for another challenge, another step forward in my journey of changing my social media consumption. Today’s challenge isn’t a walk in the park as like any of the previous ones. The task is to avoid anything and everything “everyone is talking about” unless it contributes to one’s informational goal. I for one, like many other millennials almost always have an urge to keep up with what’s trending and to be generally informed, whether it aids in the broadening our knowledge or just mere entertainment. This task really got me thinking about how I have been using mass media and what I have been sharing on my social platforms. Most of the time, it was not because the article/video/meme was the mainstream, but it was what I myself found entertaining and not necessarily educational. Similar to Manoush, I have a habit of reading and sharing numerous articles and memes but then not being able to remember what they were about and what I took from it, particularly videos.  Therefore, I saw this challenge as an opportunity for me to better myself and to learn how to filter out things that don’t stimulate my mind. Throughout the day, I can’t lie to myself or you guys and say that I wasn’t many times tempted to open Facebook, YouTube or Instagram. It was VERY hard and nearly impossible to do. Which is why after being very close to giving into temptation and possibly failing today’s task, I decided to temporarily delete those apps along with using SelfControl­ – a productivity program to temporarily block my access to websites or mail servers for a pre-set length of time on my laptop to prevent myself from getting side-tracked. Taking advantage of this time, I solely focused on catching up with all my readings and homework. At the end of the day, all I can say that it hasn’t been short, but it is probably my most productive day so far. Additionally, what I took from this challenge is that being non-trendy wasn’t bad, in contrary, it can be very beneficial, as long as you use that time to invest in yourself mentally and physically.

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Magical Phone Blog

 2)                                                                                    November 19, 2017 

And… It has been the second day of my “technology - cleansing” journey. The challenge today was to de-clutter my phone and/or rearrange the apps from most to least meaningful to me. Easy peasy, right? Well… Not really… As a self-proclaimed “lowkey” hoarder, I would use almost every excuse possible to keep things, even if I have not put them to work for over the past year or so. I would literally convince myself that it will be handy in the future or just because its’ icon complements my background perfectly. Nevertheless, I still like to be organized, so I gave this task a go. Following Marie Kondo’s method of decluttering, as mentioned in her book The life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, where she explained: “You have to hold things close to you, decide if they are sparking joy and if they don’t get rid of them!” It was difficult in the beginning as I continually felt conflicted every time I “held -onto” the apps and debating whether to uninstall it or not. Funny thing was that I even had to open some apps to remind myself why I installed it in the first place, which was like a trip down memory lane, fun and astonishing at the same time. Astonished because thinking back to when I downloaded the apps, I was very eager to implement them in my daily use, yet in reality, roughly six made it to my regular routine. Thinking about that made the challenge a bit easier. There wasn’t much of a change, but the effort was made, and I was able to clear up my phone from a total of 115 to 106 apps as well as 2GB of storage. Additionally, I also put all the apps that were not only useful but also brought me joy to the home screen, a slightly different approach to the article – putting them in a folder, since I found it was more convenient like so. Overall, today’s challenge wasn’t  half as bad as yesterday’s, nevertheless, I still felt super proud of myself for being able to “let go” of things that were not necessary on my phone as well as reorganizing it more to my daily reach. As I wrap up today’s blog, I challenge you to try this method of tidying up as well! Hard, but worth it cause not only is it convenient to have all your favorite apps in the same space, but it also helps your phone function faster than it used to.

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Magical Day Blog

1)                                                                        November 18, 2017

 Today is the first day of my journey to “detoxify” my media use… Starting off, I’d like to give credits for this inkling to INFOMAGICAL, a section of Note to Self from WNYC, which aims at endorsing people to use technology more cautiously. Nowadays, it’s notable that with the rapid advancement of technology, hence, the bombardment of information, people, as do I tend to not focus solely on tasks at hand. We all try to be as productive as possible, and by that “multi-tasking” has become overwhelmingly prevalent in today’s society. From blasting music while preparing every morning to reading news while having breakfast or popping on earbuds while studying, so on and so forth. I am pretty sure many people have a rough idea of the conduct of “multi-tasking”. However, I am sorry to break it to you that this concept is a total myth! Yes, I was astonished as well! According to Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin Basically, we can’t do many things at once because our brains don’t function like that, instead, we are rapidly shifting from one thing to the next and depleting our neural resources as we go… He explains that as we “multi-task”, our glucose lessens, causing us to crave sweets. Right after hearing that, I realised that I almost always covet all kinds of candy/chocolate, especially while studying, which is when I “multi-task” the most. Then, I thought about how much damage I have brought upon myself for “multi-tasking” almost all my life. Just thinking about it made me eager to conquer today’s challenge – single-tasking. Overall, it was a long and tough day, very tough I’d say, especially since I’ve been doing many things at once everyday for such a long time now. I tried to focus only on what I think needed to be done first and what seemed more important by muting notifications on my phone as well as turning on the “Don’t disturb” mode on my laptop to filter out alerts. The first thing I noticed was that music made everything go by so much faster, from preparing in the morning, to working-out and cooking.  Nevertheless, in turn, I was able to finish my homework faster and therefore have more time to relax. I think the reason for this is because since I always have music on while studying, in a way, the melody/lyrics distracts me, thus side tracking me on my train of thought when writing/ reading. At the end of the day, I was happy that I have fulfilled this challenge and through its’ proven benefits, I will definitely be setting this task as a goal more often for myself, particularly while studying.