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Comment by dingus | Hacker News Reader

I recently did this same thing as an experiment for a full year. No mobile phone actually, no music, no movies, no games, so a little more extreme.

The strangest feeling will come after you “reset” but everything and everyone else around you is still connected. That’s when you notice how different things have become.

Good luck. It’s a nice feeling actually, nothing to be nervous about. It gave me perspective and changed how I respect time and other people. I also appreciate technology a lot more, but it’s now in balance.

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Just curious - why so extreme? There's never been a time in my life where there was "no music" and "no movies." Back in the 1970s we had record players and 8-track tapes and the radio. We had movie theaters and they even showed movies on TV from time to time.

As a musician, the "no music" part is really disturbing to me. It sounds like a strict religious cult at that point. I mean, even before I could walk or talk my parents would sing to me sometimes (I'm told).

I'm not the person you replied to but I've considered allowing nothing but live music. Maybe buying and learning to play an instrument. My very distant family (only met them once at a reunion) are farmers and they entertain themselves by playing their own music and have a band. It'd encourage me to actually go to concerts rather than have the instant gratification of electronic media. For me, at least, its about forming habits against that instant gratification digital media provides. We've decided on an middle ground, we're going to start buying CDs (which are really cheap these days!). I don't remember the last time I listened to an album all the way through instead of flipping from song to song. Even with movies, we were watching "Meet Me in St Louis" and it was interesting to learn that before TV people would put on skits for their family rather than passively being presented with a movie. We'll still be watching movies (in theaters) but only sometimes.

Not everyone is into music. Months go by sometimes when I have my head down working on a project that I realize I haven't listened to music the entire time.

Then there are times I can't go an hour without playing something. Losing music for a year though wouldn't be a noticeable change in my life.

I should clarify, no recorded media in the home or with a mobile device. It wasn’t a protest of strictly modern technology, as some of these things have been around for ages in other forms.

If I wanted to listen to music, I went to local shows. That was the mentality.

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