Addicted to Media?

I was doing some research for a story I was thinking of pitching to my editors at Reader's Digest. The idea was all about giving up media for a month. And when I say giving up media--I mean it. No blackberry. No cell phone. No e-mail. No video games. No T.V. No video games. You get the idea. The only time you could use media was at your job (and no cheating allowed!). How would this impact someone's life? My guess it would be pretty dramatically.

A few months ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published their 2007 report all about how Americans spend there time. Here is a very basic breakdown.

Sleep: 9 hours
Work: 8 hours
TV: 2.5 hours
Phone, E-mail, Mail: 2 hours
Eating: 1.25 hours
Chores: 1.25 hours

It's pretty interesting stuff. But think about we have about 15 waking hours every day. Eight of those are spent at work. So, over half the remaining hours are spent with the TV or online or on the cell phone. We spend the least amount of time eating at the dinner table where there are conversations to be had. What's going on here?

Of course, the simple answer to that if we've become more and more media-dependent and our world is becoming more technically advanced. When I was a freshman in college, my professor gave my class a project: abstain from media for one week. It nearly killed me. Whatever TV show I was watching religiously at that time, went unwatched and I almost physically writhed in pain knowing I was missing an episode.

I wonder if anyone in our society could get by without media today? I recently saw the movie Witness with Harrison Ford for like the 10th time. It's a great movie and the people in it--the Amish--have lived for decades without the technology we see as so vital in our lives.

What's my point? I guess there really isn't one except, I'd like to hear if you've tried to have a "media fast." How'd it go? More to come soon since I plan (yet again) to take advantage of technology and keep my blog current (or at least, somewhat current).