PHOTO: WC students Kendall Miller (LEFT) and Reese Smith are well connected with cellphones and laptop computers, unlike students in Audrey Wagstaff's class during their 24 hour media exclusion exercise.
A young person walks into a restaurant, classroom or family gathering…without a mobile phone. Gasp! Recently, this was a reality as more than two dozen Wilmington College students were asked to go a day without their phones. Punishment? No. This was a hands-on learning and living experience assigned by Professor of Social Science and Communication Arts Dr. Audrey Wagstaff.
The Media Exclusion Project has been a mainstay in Wagstaff’s “Mass Media in a Global Society” course for years. The requirements are seemingly simple: refrain from using media devices (e.g., smartphones) for 24 hours, keep a journal about the experience, and then write a reflection paper that connects course concepts to the student’s musings about the project. In the reflection, students are also asked to connect their experience with passages from Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation book. Students then gather during their final exam period to discuss their findings.
“It is a project I very much look forward to hearing about,” Wagstaff said. “But I know it is also one that many students dread. They are tethered to their devices, and now, almost 5 years post-COVID 19, our connectivity via media feels like more of a necessity than ever before.”
Many students begin to see their media use and devices in a new way after even a short period of time spent unplugged.
“The first challenge I encountered was the physical reflex to reach for my phone,” one student described. “As I sat down for breakfast, I found myself automatically reaching for my phone to check for any new notifications. This reaction was unsettling; it was as though my phone had become an extension of myself. For the first hour or so, I struggled to resist the temptation to check my social media accounts and text my friends. This was not simply an issue of curiosity but a habitual reflex that had become ingrained in my daily life.”
Acknowledging this habitual connection, many students opt to complete their project over the Thanksgiving holiday when they are planning to be around others like family members and friends. “Having a gameplan seems to reduce some of the anxiety around disconnecting and missing something,” Wagstaff explained.
And yet they quickly realize they are witnessing more than they are missing, she noted.
Several students expressed frustration that, without their own devices, they bore witness to their family members gathered but on their own phones.
One student wrote, “Once I got to the first Thanksgiving dinner, I walked inside and looked around. Since I was not on my phone, I had the time to observe the people that I have spent numerous dinners with. Everyone was on their phone at some point. It was weird because I had never realized this before. There was limited face-to-face conversation. Face-to-face conversation is the most humanizing way of conversation. However, I was able to have some inspiring conversations with my older family members, like my grandma and grandpa, that I might not have had without this project. They were raised without phones until late in their life. They know how to have conversations that are real and raw, and that is truly something I envy from their generation.”
Another student agreed, expressing appreciation for the ability to truly converse. “In a society where digital connectivity is often prioritized, it’s easy to forget how fulfilling it can be to unplug and reconnect with the people around you. Spending time with my family without the distraction of my phone allowed me to truly enjoy their company, to listen deeply, and to engage with the holiday in a way I hadn’t done in years.”
Reconnecting or engaging with others more deeply can be a very positive effect of unplugging because you are able to connect more richly to the people who are right there with you, Wagstaff explained.
“’FOMO,’ or the Fear of Missing Out, often dominates the anxiety for students as they contemplate the project,” Wagstaff said. “They are consumed with the idea that they are going to miss something super important or even catastrophic.”
As one student admitted, “I told my boyfriend when we left…without my phone, ‘I’m scared something crazy is going to happen like Dolly Parton will die or something.’ The addiction of social media in general can be traced back to the ‘CRITICAL’ attitude that occupies so much space in the media. I’ve definitely heard of FOMO before, but I’ve never considered it outside of watching people have fun on social media. In this case, I have a fear of missing out on the latest negative news and updates. The media uses crisis culture to invoke the negatively valenced emotion of fear, which creates dependency and makes them their profits. The way my personality interacts with media created yet another reason I felt “withdrawals” from my phone; I was afraid of missing a tragedy and news about a prominent public figure. My worry was baseless, there was no reason for me to believe that Dolly was not alive, well, and sparkling!”
Still, even with the reassurance that all is well in the world, some students dread the project so much that they cannot wait to return to their devices, only to be surprised by their feelings once they reconnect again.
“Once 8 p.m. hit, I instantly opened Snapchat and answered some messages from a few of my friends. Naturally, I felt guilty. The 24 hours without social media, and really no media at all, felt like a breath of fresh air to me, so that when I opened a social media platform, I felt claustrophobic again.”
Likewise, another student reflected upon how quickly she was able to notice subtle changes to her outlook. “As Thanksgiving progressed, I began to experience an unexpected sense of anxiety. A constant thought lingered in the back of my mind: ‘What am I missing?’ While my family and I were engaged in conversations and enjoying the holiday, I couldn’t help but wonder what was happening online. Was there a family member or friend I was missing out on connecting with? Was I failing to keep up with important updates from friends? This emotional toll was one of the hardest aspects of being media-free. This reminded me of the Uses and Gratifications theory. In a way, I have used media to fulfill my life. Doomscrolling is real and unhealthy but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t one of my more recent habits. Media is suffocating at times, and this project opened my eyes to it greatly. Despite these struggles, I began to notice small, subtle rewards from my decision to stay away from media. Without the constant distraction of my phone, I found myself able to focus more deeply on the conversations I was having with my family. I listened more attentively to their stories, memories, and laughter. I felt more connected to them in a way that I hadn’t experienced in a long time. Without the interference of social media, I realized that the simple act of being present, fully immersed in the moment, was incredibly fulfilling.”
“We hear the term ‘doomscrolling’ and we like to think we are immune from it,” Wagstaff said. “But it is a reality and is really a symptom of the urge to pass time, relieve boredom, and feel good – albeit temporarily.”
Doomscrolling is the term for endlessly scrolling media content – particularly negative news – in a way that leads people to feel hopeless, sad, anxious, or even angry, Wagstaff explained. “We often seek more information when we are unsure or feel unprepared, but end up in TMI mode, completely overwhelmed and worse off mentally than we were when we first turned to our devices,” Wagstaff said. “It is important to know when we’ve had enough or when we are so immersed in our devices that we are preventing real connection from happening with real people.”
This was a takeaway for many students as they reflected on the project.
As one student wrote, “My 24-hour media fast revealed how much I use media as a crutch for managing boredom, anxiety, and connection,” she wrote. “Without it, I felt both liberated and unsettled—more present in my interactions but also more aware of my reliance on algorithms and notifications to connect with others. This experience reminded me of the importance of balance: staying connected while carving out time for meaningful, offline moments. I am going to intentionally force myself to have media-free periods during my day, not only to reduce distractions but also to reconnect with myself and those around me in more intentional ways.”
One student, who completed the project with a friend, spent a lot of time outdoors. “I know that sunshine helps with serotonin levels, and it is a more natural way to get stimulation than scrolling through social media,” he wrote. “I used to find myself doomscrolling all the time on Instagram and constantly being worried about losing a streak with somebody on Snapchat. Only to realize, just because you have a streak with someone doesn’t mean you have a good friendship with them. It makes it seem superficial.”
Other students also found themselves more connected to their physical surroundings, taking notice of the smell of fresh pine at a tree farm or the details of a funny story to recount later.
A student companion from a previously mentioned anecdote reflected on the memorable details of a story she will tell from years to come. She and some friends were traversing one of the difficult paths to a secret, hidden spot in the campus’s Hazard Arboretum when one of her comrades fell down mid-transit, and they all laughed.
“This connects to Sherri Turkle’s quote, ‘When digital media encourage us to edit ourselves until we have said THE RIGHT THING, we can lose sight of the important thing: Relationships deepen not because we necessarily say anything in particular but because we are invested enough to show up for another conversation.’ If we would have our phones with us, there would have been snapchatted videos of that moment and then that moment wouldn’t have been the same. It would have been ruined because someone would have been on their phone and missed the moment. The moment became more special because we were all connecting our relationships and had no distractions.”
Without a device to capture the essence of a moment, we are forced to be more mindful, recording every detail, Wagstaff explained. “We have become all too reliant on our phones to capture and organize our lives,” she said.
Thus, not surprisingly students also carefully considered how reliant they are on ‘smart’ devices.
As one student reflected, “The absence of IoT [Internet of Things] devices highlighted how seamlessly they merge into my habits” she wrote. “While their convenience is unquestionable, the exclusion forced me to reevaluate how much control I give up to these systems. For instance, I learned that manual adjustments to my environment, like adjusting the thermostat or jotting down reminders, reconnected me with the physical world and added a sense of organization often lost in automated tasks.”
This project also gave students a chance to think about memory tasks and how we construct collective memory.
As one student wrote, “Technology today has made memories so accessible and seeing these photos that haven’t seen the light of day in years gave me a weird feeling I can’t explain. It also made me think of how technology has evolved so much and so rapidly to where even in my lifetime memories have been rendered obsolete just because of the medium they were rendered on.”
“With all of the devices we have listening to us and our every request, we start to feel like we are never alone,” Wagstaff said. “Thus, another takeaway from the project is appreciating the importance of being alone – not lonely – with oneself.”
Not surprisingly, students admit that they use their devices to alleviate boredom and be entertained.
“I use music and TV for diversion as well as entertainment,” one student wrote. “I learned that I have ingrained entertainment into my everyday life to the point where I am at a loss when I don’t have it.”
One student cited a passage from Turkle’s book, reflecting, “The importance of solitude and self-reflection became evident when I no longer had TV, social media, or music to distract me from everything going on in my life. Turkle suggests that ‘It is only when we are alone with our thoughts – not reacting to external stimuli – that we engage that part of the brain’s basic infrastructure devoted to building up a sense of our stable autobiographical past, (p. 61). For most of my young adult life, I have struggled with what I would call, “mental breakdowns,” where every so often, things feel so overwhelming to me that I can do nothing but cry from the weight of life. I did not realize this was stemming from the habit of constant distraction and never allowing myself to really, truly feel emotions until I stripped away the distractions. The lack of noise forced me into coping with big emotions, but I learned that solitude and reflection can help me navigate the stress of life so that I can avoid having periodical breakdowns and be more mentally present for my loved ones.”
“I love conversing with the students about this project and then reading their reflections,” Wagstaff said. “The sincerity in their voices and their commitment to reflecting on the role that media and mediated devices plays in their lives is indicative of their growth. One of the major goals I have for the course is to develop greater media literacy. Year after year, this project demonstrates that they are doing just that.”
Another student, a graduating senior who gravitated to this course with unintended consequences summed up the experience with perspective, “This assignment was something that I found very useful. Not going on any social media of any kind or using technology to entertain myself allowed me to engross myself in my hobbies that I have not done in a long time. Relearning how to deal with my boredom challenged me intellectually and forced me to enter back into the role that I took at a younger age before social media. Overall, I am incredibly grateful for this experience and being able to detach from technology so that I could reignite my passion for reading and writing once again. My intention is to move forward from this experience by selecting specific days where I avoid using technology and social media so that I can read the books that I have not read and write the stories that I want to tell.”