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Infomagical, Day five

Day five, Magical life, tells the listener to take in what they’ve done for a moment, reflect on how following this challenge changes you as a person. Finally ending with the final challenge of giving yourself a mantra to go by, in order to prevent information overload from happening again.

In response to this, I’m once again finding the same problems, I use information and news as a way of killing time rather than focusing on a main goal. I stray away from conversations not because I’m nervous around other people, but rather because I’ve almost conditioned myself to be on a timer if I’m not on the internet, focusing on the objective in my head and pushing away anything else. Even with that, however, thanks to this mindset, I also end up pushing the timer as far as I can. Literally as i was writing this, accidentally changed tabs and ended up watching YouTube videos for about half and hour. It’s problematic for me because it makes me think that University is a lonely place, full of friends who are with friends who meet up with friends, but rather it’s just that i haven’t really put any effort into expanding my horizons because i’m caught in a cycle of extreme focus, or antisocial downtime. The InfoMagical challenge really just confirmed that as a problem, and I feel that creating my sentence to live by is the first step to solving this problem.

That is why, for the final InfoMagical challenge, I’ve chosen this sentence as my reflection:

You’ll wear down a road the more you walk it, always look for newer routes.

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Infomagical Day 2

Day Two, a Magical Phone, ask to organize your phone, getting rid of any apps which don’t give you immediate joy. This is the hardest challenge for me. On one hand, i will gladly get rid of certain apps, with their useless notifications, I have Discord and Facebook on my computer, why should i have them on my phone? Discord made me restart my phone because the notifications crashing and leaving a massive white space in my phone. On the other, there are apps which i neglect but i find important, like my gmail is filled with spam, but checking the notifications tells me how my family is doing, meaning that i should keep it. In the same vein, i have two games on my phone one is an emulator and the other is a massive phone port of a video game, while i don’t really use either right now, i don’t want to get rid of them, because i’d loose my progress. I understand that the Condo method could be used when it comes to cleaning up phones, but there are somethings on my phone that I've invested time into and rather than joy, i feel pride and getting rid of it would mean that I loose that time I’ve sunk into it.

Nonetheless, i’ll present  the apps and describing their fate:

Reddit- use all the time, enjoy it. Keep

Color Switch- Mindless fun, but not worth the screen space- Delete

Gallery- Can’t really Delete so Keep

Messanger- I use it more than other messaging servaces- keep

Email- Generic and i think its still on a dead email- delete

Camera- see Gallery- Keep

Play Store- It’s for apps, it reall doesn’t make sense to be here, but its still worth it- Moved to a folder

Google Folder- Has everything google in it, i use the services- Keep

Snapchat- Should probably keep this becuase there’s use- Keep

Netflix- I forgot the password years ago, why do i even have this on a phone? -delete

Chase- Bank app, tells me how much money i have on whenever- Keep

Clock- Time is irreplaceable- keep

Soundcloud- main music service- keep

... etc, you get it

By the end of the sorting, about three pages of apps were deleted, kept or stored in larger folders, bringing my phone down to one and a half pages.

After the process, I realized that my phone was really clutuered, not with apps I’ve downloaded, but apps brought in by my android. Email, onedrive, for some reason a phone copy of Excel, these were all apps i couldn’t get rid of, but never downloaded myself. While these are all shortcuts which i deleted or moved, i realized that much of my clutter is just things that i’ve ignored, and moving the apps around to the ones that I actually like will probably inspire me to use them again.

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Infomagical Day 3

Well since everything already out of order in the days I've posted.

Day 3, Magical Brain, details the problem of information overload, where since we’re always being bombarded with new things, we end up forgetting them quickly. Everyday it becomes harder to focus on important problems, as while we could be focused on an important world event, a cat picture could send us into a spiral of ignoring the issue, eventually pushing it out of our minds. In my opinion, this was the second hardest day of the challenge, mainly because of my primary time-waster; Reddit. That site is the definition of information overload, spreading a miasma of political opinions, cats, more political opinions but the reverse of whatever the first one was, and boobs. Making it both enthralling and self-conscious to read in public. If i was to complete this challenge, Reddit would have to not be used for the entire day.

However, on the day of the challenge, i got lucky. Some big issue was happening in the US (where most Redditors come from) and so literally every place which was giving information overload was focusing on one point (it was about Net neutrality, an issue in the US). Making it so that i could focus on important news instead of being bombarded with random information. Plus, with the extra time, i found a nice book to read instead of to kill time rather than reddit. But doing the challenge has also introduced a problem.

During the day of no external information, i managed to finish an entire book, in the morning. I just started at 8 and i closed it up by 1. This is another problem of our present day; we suffer from information overload because we end up binging through information. With instantaneous information being all around the world, we speed through any info we see so that we’re always up to date as, if we miss one thing, then we might miss the newest meme. Magical Brain highlights the issues of information overload, but in doing the challenge it seems like I adapted to it, but that without it, i may run out of things to do.

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Infomagical Day 1

This is the first day of the Informagical challenge: Magical Day. In this challenge, we have to go a day without multitasking, meaning that I can’t watch Youtube while i play video games, watch youtube while i cook, or watch youtube while i’m in the bathroom. If the previous sentence doesn’t allude to it much, my main form of multitasking is Youtube. Listening to Let’s plays are a good white noise, letting me just veg out and play for hours without putting too much focus in things. Plus, Youtube has the types of videos where you don’t have to put too much focus into the video. Getting rid of Youtube means that i would have to do something which requires my full attention.

Now, i don’t mean to brag, but this was the easiest challenge yet. Why is that? because there are alternatives to everything i’ve used Youtube for. when playing video games, simply choose activities which revolve around communication and cooperation, things which i don’t do while i’m using Youtube because it requires massive investment. These activities can take hours to finish, meaning that one of these activities could take up most of the day, speeding up the time this takes for the challenge (is that cheating? probably not). Afterwards, all i did was make a quick dinner and went to watching Netflix, shows which draw you in and make you want to binge-watch, making the day of the challenge really simple to complete.

After completing the challenge, I’m beginning to wonder if i actually even was multi-tasking when i had Youtube open. They described it like i’m doing multiple things at once, but really after completing the challenge, it seems like i just using it as white noise. Judging by the negative conditions of multitasking, if that is the case, then it makes me feel like everyday for me is a Magical Day

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Infomagical, Day 4

... I may have skipped a few days, just pretend that day four is at day four. 

To the actual response, i listened to Infomagical: Magical Connection, and my first thought was that the lack of real conversations is one of my bigger problems at University. Unlike high school and all the schools before, university students can only see one another about 2 or three times every week, making it really hard to keep connections and a base for a real conversation, or at least for me. I know that not everyone has that problem but it’s difficult to keep a conversation and establish a circle of friends when someone they know who’s closer to them can just interrupt and take hold of the conversation, leaving you in a spot where you have to let them finish, but you just end up standing there awkwardly. Back when there were mandatory times when you couldn’t use emails or text to talk helped conversations really flow better, or at least for me.

However, i’m doing this task first because i had accidentally completed it impromptu. After finishing a tutorial, i ended up walking back to the food court with another person, there we talked for about 30 minutes about anything which came into mind. Homework, living spaces, how annoying the buses are, the only reason we really stopped talking was because i had to go to another class. It was a nice conversation and a good use of time, but it also highlighted the mystery that connects people here at university. 

Unlike the podcast, i don’t find man to man conversations exhausting because you have to plan out the steps, in fact, controlling the flow seems only like a bigger problem than not knowing it at all. The problem for me comes from the fact that i don’t know how to start a long one, with in part thanks to media. When i talk, it feels general and not long lasting, i’ll say thanks and then put my head back into my phone. Media is always in my thoughts, which is why when i enter conversation, my first real thought is to end it as fast as possible so i can go back to my own devices. this is the catalyst for my issues with person to person conversations, i myself need to improve on hooking myself into talking to alleviate this. Magical conversation taught me that a conversation requires investment and my interest in putting in time is too high, if i were to decrease it, than every day can be a magical day.