Senior Rohit Biswas goes without texting

What was it like not texting for 24 hours?

At the beginning it was a lot harder than I’d have expected it to be because you want to think you’re not so dependent on texting. But as the day went on, anything unexpected that happened in my day, like I had to leave school to go on a debate trip to go talk to some middle schoolers, I wanted to tell people about that but I couldn’t actually text them to tell them. So it can be much harder to communicate with people at their convenience. Because texting, at its essence, is letting people respond at their convenience, and that’s probably the easiest way to talk to people at school, and you just couldn’t do that. One of my friends was out of class as well, couldn’t talk to anyone about it because I couldn’t easily text them about it. So it’s just that whenever something new or unexpected happens you see the need for texting. We also had a football game that night, and not texting during it makes it, in the stands, kind of boring because you’re stuck where you are, really, and you really can’t walk around and talk to people very much. Texting fills that gap during that moment, so not being able to text kind of diminishes that somehow.

Did your experience help you understand your own texting habit better?

I kind of realized that texting doesn’t really replace anything for me, and I guess that’s what I thought beforehand. It just helped me realize how prevalent [texting] is in my life, because I’ll text someone and not even think about, like, ‘hey, I’m texting them,’ but physically and mentally stopping myself from that action that I consider habitual has just kind of opened my eyes to how much I do it.

Could you go longer without texting?

I feel like I could, but I would not enjoy it. I also could survive getting drowned for a minute and a half, but that doesn’t mean it’s a pleasant experience. Anyone can [stop texting], it’s just, why would you?

Do you feel like you could go without texting indefinitely?

Texting I feel is a necessity, but it’s one that you can live without for some time. Because whenever I go to Europe or India, I have to go without texting for a decent amount of time, because you can’t text, because of roaming charges, etc. etc. You just feasibly can’t text people. So, because of that, I feel like I’m used to not texting people for long periods of time, it’s just not a pleasant experience.