I previously mentioned that I have many close friends that I keep in touch with through online and during the week of no communication with each other, that all exploded today. I logged in this morning and we started playing through online video games nonstop. We started with a game called Dota 2( A game where it is 5 players vs 5 players with each player controlling a hero that attempts to change the course of battle as each team has passive armies marching towards each other in 3 lanes, to change the flow to favor their own team) where we yelled and laughed at each other for making mistakes or dumb moves. We jumped into World of Warcraft next, grabbing a whole bunch of our friends to come back into the game and start raiding (a term where players group in a team of 10 or 25 to kill monsters) and we spent hours just screaming and laughing at each other.

This whole experience today has made me appreciate that we have so much digital entertainment at our disposal. A lot of my friends live far apart from each other and because video games exist, we are able to hang out online and partake in online video games to enjoy each other's company. To be honest I don't particularly many video games I play with my friends ie: World of Warcraft, League of Legends, but they become so much fun when a group of us play that any game becomes instant fun. Our laughter and screams through voice programs and a group play in online video games fulfill the void to socialize and interact with other people. As much as I love to hang out with my middle school friends in real life, that is a near impossible in real life, and it's amazing how our technology has advance to the point where a bunch of guys living across the U.S. can hang out everyday by simply going on to their computers.

So this post will be a list of everything I used before and after the project.

Before the project I used the following media

-Computer for:
 -Watching shows  (Netflix, Anime, Online shows, etc)
 -Reading random articles
 -Reading random twitter messages
 -Reading online books
 -Video Games
 -Talk to friends online (Close friends who live all over the US, kept in touch for years through chat programs like skype, ventrillo, and now mumble).

Smart Phone for:
-Internet use (Reading random articles/webpages)
-Twitter Viewing
-App games

After this project I have begun doing many things outside of digital and tech media a lot more. I have:

-Begun reading again much more
-Have a greater appreciation for Table top games ie: DnD.
-Bought some board games, but did not play them with brother during project week due to not meeting with each other, but next time he comes over, I do plan to play board games instead of video games.

And I plan to DM an online DnD sessions with friends I've known since middle school starting the latter part of this month, combining digital and table top. This project has allowed me to explore new ways to interact with people without digital components and I've enjoyed the face to face interactions and I wish to extend this to my other friends across the US, but obviously limited to online meets, so I hope playing DnD with our webcams aimed at each other would invoke the same feelings.

Today I went back to assembling fully into using back media again. Spent a good portion of the day catching up to all the old shows I missed be it anime, The Voice, online DnD show called Rollplay, and many others. Watching them made me appreciate the different kinds of story our current media can form that is a different experience from reading, playing board games, etc. It's a much simpler form of media that instead of imagining the world, the world is pre-imagined and it fed to you. It's nice once and a while to not think and be fed information to you while enjoying yourself at the same time. With board games, books, and table top playing, they require attention and it is fun to think and plan out things, but sometimes, it's nice to sit back and be lazy and just have entertainment fed to you.

Technically Wednesday but got home very late due to some family issues (writing this in 3 am).

Over the course of the day I noticed my spark for reading has invigorated again. I'm finding joy in challenging my mind with complicated and detailed scenarios in my head. I've realized how little brain power our use of media requires. When we watch TV, our brain out shutdown and just absorb what we are seeing, When we are typing on twitter, we write what ever comes to our mind and not thought out like a letter. App games that are essentially skinner boxes that play with simple touches on the screen. Everything is very simple and not thought provoking, While reading, my brain is racing to imagine the world I'm digesting and creating the universe in my mind. I personally feel more fulfilled as a person just reading, something I won't get from watching TV, playing with twitter, playing app games, as a way to spend my free time.

I started using my phone again today (it's internet feature), and I've missed the ease of access to news, status updates, and general information gathering. During the period where I was unable to use media, I felt alone an naked during the first couple days. The lack of internet and news gathering of current events left me feeling barren and I filled the time by moving my focus on to other things. Instead of browsing the internet on my phone, I would read a book (Wheel of Time) in between classes while I waited. First I was happy about reading again, but then asked why I hadn't been reading for a while. It was easier in my mind to use my phone to just browse through the internet / play app games rather than opening a book and reading it. I subconsciously felt that reading (despite me reading a lot) took more effort than opening up my phone so therefore I didn't want to read because I wanted to take a break from work. This might sound weird, but I did not have a smart phone until this year and it also correlated to my lessening of reading. I think I'll just carry a book where ever I go from now on, I try to read instead of using my phone to browse through time.

While playing video games, I've noticed how similar it is to DnD (In the RPG sense). How a table top game can do so much and a yet video cannot do. In DnD, your imagination was your limit. The look on people's faces as you made your actions. The excitement that you feel in the air as one of your friends rolls a 20 on a d20. The round table bickering over the dumbest thing. Not being able to use media left a void in myself that I tried to fill with books and DnD. Now I'm left with a void for not being able to sit around a table and play a game with my friends all right there to talk and have fun.

I play online video games to interact with others by playing with them and socializing with others. However, online interactions cannot compared to face to face interactions. Online interactions feel very impersonal, and the Internet being a wild place with the cover of anonymous, it is a very volatile area with people not caring what they type. Face to face interaction forces you to to engage with the people around you in a meaningful way. I'm actually bored of video games now, I've only really played when a group of my friends are asking me to play competitive online games like (Dota 2, League of Legends, etc). I've noticed the online interaction of playing a video online helps fills the void left by playing DnD face to face, but it isn't enough to fill it all. I'm already trying to plan another DnD session.

As of writing this my DnD game is still going on. Today is the day my media use is lifted, but the excrement of playing DnD has offset any urge I had to use media (despite abling to use it). I've noticed how liberating it is to just talk to people face to face, have fun, rather than through an online means.

As for my lost of urge to use media. It probably has something to do with my need to be engaged, socialize, and active. Our media gives us all of these things in small tidbit in constant flows that our need to be engaged, socialize, and active become dependent on our current form of media. It just does it job so well. But my lost of urge to use (today) was due to having a even more engaging, socializing, and active experience than my current form of media can give me.