Challenge 4: Media

This Sunday starts our next challenge of "7", media. Justin and I's list will be a bit different for this challenge, but in all, we are each choosing seven different media outlets to turn-off for these next 30 days. It's going to line up nicely with this Lenten season and will take us up to Easter. It's a good time to pick up better habits about being scripture and taking more time to slow down. Meditate. Pray. Be. As much of an adjustment I know it will be, I'm really actually looking forward to it and pray that what we learn will stick even after the challenge is complete.

Here's my list:

-Netflix/Amazon Instant Video
-TV (I don't watch regular TV anyway, but this will mean no March Madness)
-Facebook
-Phone apps (for me this is only Facebook and Gmail, but still a distraction. I'm going to uninstall both of these from my phone) *Also, Justin and I both are going to start putting our phone out of reach when we are at home.
-Online window shopping/web browsing (for me this basically Amazon and Etsy)
-Catalogs and magazines
-Adding: Reading before bed (The Bible or other spiritual growth titles)

I'm at home most of each day and the few hours that I'm not, I'm at my office job. I find myself going non-stop from the moment my feet hit the floor (or even before my feet hit the floor. When my early-bird of a daughter makes her way downstairs before my alarm even goes off...). For the most part, I don't have a ton of media outlets that take up my time. It's mostly Facebook and email that are so readily available on my laptop or my phone, that it seems like I click on my phone every time I pass by it laying on the counter to see if I have any emails (90% of which are daily emails from stores that I just delete anyway). Or maybe someone commented on my Facebook status and I just have to know what they said or I can't go on with my day. Seriously. It's really sad to admit that. Here is a reference from the book we are reading to a New Your Times article about "your brain on computers":

Scientists say juggling email, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information (for me, Facebook is the ultimate example of information "bursts"). They play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. The stimulation provokes excitement - a dopamine squirt - that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored. For millions of people these urges can inflict nicks and cuts on creativity and deep thought, interrupting work and family life. 

I completely believe it. And I'm ready to take on this challenge. I'm ready to want to punch these time-sucks in the face.