Technology and Everyday Life: The “Unplug” Exercise

Introduction to Sociology
RESEARCH PAPER ASSIGNMENT
Technology and Everyday Life: The “Unplug” Exercise
Introduction
Zen sociologist Bernard McGrane is noted for having designed a series of exercises that are
widely used in teaching sociology students. This includes the “Doing Nothing” Data Workshop
featured in Chapter 1. The “Un-TV” exercise is another of his most popular, in which he asks
students to “watch” TV without turning it on. While these exercises may appear simple at first,
the ideas they highlight are very sophisticated. Students are required to use a sociological
perspective to achieve an unusual level of awareness about a particular aspect of their everyday
lives.
This assignment is inspired by the “Un-TV” exercise, but lets you decide which form of media
technology you’d like to unplug from. It should be something that regularly takes up your time
and attention and that might actually be hard for you to stop using. For most people, the most
ubiquitous device in their world is a cell phone, but you could also choose a computer, music
player, or a tablet that connects you to the internet and your favorite websites, or some other
media format you use a lot, like cable TV, podcasts, or video gaming. Think about how long you
can go without using this technology or device on a typical day (or longer). If you’re like many
people, even a few hours away from your cell phone or computer screen might seem like a very
long time.
How are you going to feel when you can’t text message, watch videos on YouTube or TikTok,
post pictures on Instagram or check your news feed on Facebook? We take these technologies
for granted and cannot imagine our lives without them—but maybe life would be better! What
are some of the benefits of unplugging? When we detach from our devices we also get to
disconnect from the over-stimulation that comes from living in a media-saturated world. Can
just a few hours of being unplugged reduce anxiety, dependency, fatigue, and information
overload? Or does unplugging make you feel even more stressed out? That’s what this exercise
is designed to reveal. A great part of the difficulty of this exercise is actually getting yourself to
do it. But even more so, it can be a challenge to confront your own habits and dependencies on
a deep level. The “Unplug” exercise asks you to do just that. The idea is for you to notice the
way the technology permeates your everyday life and to see what happens when you try to
resist using it.
Conceptual Framework
For this assignment, you will be doing hands-on, original research, using sociological thinking.
While you are considering how to conduct your study, you should consult Chapter 1 to review
the various suggestions about how to think like a sociologist. There you will find some
approaches to studying the social world that should help you to plan your investigations and
frame the way you write about them. In specific, you might want to consider how such
techniques as practicing “Beginner’s Mind” (setting aside all prior judgments, opinions, and
even experiences), “culture shock” or “the sociological imagination” can put you in the right
state of mind, and can help you to see more that you might otherwise as just a casual observer.
These techniques can serve as the foundation for later analyses you make.
For this assignment, you will be doing participant observation research of your everyday life,
while also preparing to write a short ethnography about your experience. Actually, you’re doing
autoethnography, which means you are the subject of your own study. Return to the section in
Chapter 2 for a review of this research method. You’ll be talking specifically about this kind of
research, so you’ll want to refer to the discussion in the text to guide your research, and again
to support your reflections when you write up your study later.
A very important aspect of the study is to produce thorough and detailed field notes of what
you observe—field notes are worth 20% of your grade. Field notes can be informal in tone and
format, and should necessarily be written in the first person (“I” statements), since a good part
of the research is about you. Field notes are not essays; feel free to use whatever writing style
helps you to take quick and copious notes. Don’t worry about grammar, but do get the details.
Good field notes should have “thick description” with many details and descriptions about the
scene, actions, interactions, and your own self-reflections. Use all of your senses. When it
comes to field notes, go for quantity over elegance–more is almost always better. Also be aware
that field notes are NOT a rough draft of your paper; field notes contain your data set, only
observations about what happened in the field (no analysis). Field notes should be typed so
they can appear at the end of your paper and be included in the one electronic file you’ll submit
to Canvas.
More Prompts and Questions
In addition to considering the introduction and conceptual framework, address the following
prompts.
1. Choose a media technology for the exercise. This should be something you use regularly, but
that you can safely turn off for a period of time. (Obviously, pick a time, place, and type of
technology that won’t put you or anyone else in jeopardy). Why did you choose this technology,
and how does it fit the criteria for this study? Note: when I say turn off, I mean power down
your device. Don’t just mute or put it on vibrate, don’t have it on lock screen or in sleep mode.
Put it away somewhere you can’t see it, or even someplace you can’t reach it until after the
exercise is over. After all, this is called the “Unplug” exercise.
2. Determine how long you will go without this technology; it could be for three hours, an
afternoon or two days, depending upon how often you use it. What’s important is to create an
impact by turning it off. Why is the time period you determined adequate in length to create
some results in conducting your study?
3. Go about your daily business while you refrain from using your chosen technology during the
designated time period. Don’t become distracted. Keep a part of your focus on what’s
happening with the exercise and check in on yourself frequently. Take field notes at points
during the research process or immediately upon completing.
4. What happens as the exercise unfolds? Are you having any difficulties going without? When
and why? What are your thoughts, feelings, and sensations? How attentive are you to the
details of your reactions? What happens as time progresses? How is it different the further or
closer you are to the end of the allotted time for the exercise?
5. At the end of the exercise, are you relieved to turn on your device again? Or were there some
unexpected benefits of turning it off? What do you see now about using the technology that
you did not notice before? Does it feel any different to resume using the technology after
having conducted the exercise?
6. Part of your analysis includes reflecting on the process of doing social research. For many of
you, this may be the first time you have conducted original, first-hand research. You got some
preliminary practice with this when you did the exercise Looking at Society earlier in the
semester. Discuss the research process and how it went for you. What was it like to do the field
work and apply some of the scientific method to your own experience? Do you think that your
research is representative; in other words, would you expect that other people might have a
similar experience to your own if they also unplugged?
Instructions
Consider the introduction, conceptual framework, prompts and questions above to organize
and analyze your work. You must refer to the relevant concepts from Chapters 1 & 2 and include
at least two quoted citations from them in your write-up. Frame your paper with a review and
discussion of the sociological perspective from Chapter 1 (i.e.: culture shock, beginner’s mind,
or the sociological imagination) as a foundation for doing research. You also need to refer to the
relevant concepts from Chapter 2. Review, define and discuss participant observation and
ethnography (also autoethnography) as your research methods. As part of your research, you
must take good field notes during or directly after you do the exercise. Draw upon your field
notes and refer to specific passages to support your analysis. Include a bibliography listing the
textbook in the references section at the end of your paper. Do not use any outside sources. The
body of the paper should be approximately 4 pages, double-spaced and type-written; field
notes should be an additional 2-3 pages in length (single spaced), and appear as an appendix at
the end of your paper. For additional information see the Paper Grading Rubric and Paper
Writing Guidelines posted to Canvas. Also note that you can get support from the SBCC Writing
Center.
Submitting Your Paper
You will be turning in an electronic file on Canvas that automatically links your work with
Turnitin.com (do not go to the Turnitin website). Save all of your work into one electronic file;
the only accepted file formats are doc, docx, or pdf. Title your file with your name and the
course CRN #. Upload your electronic file to the RESEARCH PAPER_SUBMIT HERE link in Canvas.