I had 15 minutes of alone time on Thursday, October 10th, in my dorm room. I technically was not alone, for my roommate was in the room with me. However, I specifically requested that she would not interact with me until a timer went off. During this time, I would lay on my bed and look out of the window. I would watch the people walking by, and predicted how I expected my weekend would go. I think the experience went fine. The only distraction that I experienced was the thought that my dad was going to call me. That was because he was on his way to pick me up from Western Massachusetts. Otherwise, I did not feel any other need to communicate with others. In general, I like having alone time. What I typically do is put on music and go on long walks so that I can think about whatever I want. The downside, is that I do use my phone during that process.

My 15 minute experience connects to Sherry Turkle, and her proposition that people are using their electronics as connections in order to prevent someone from feeling alone. As I’ve mentioned before, I did worry about my phone going off. However, I don’t personally believe that my mind process was based off of loneliness, but rather because I was expecting someone to contact me.

On the contrary, I did make another connection to Turkle on a separate event that took place over the weekend. I had purchased a new phone and was asked to set it up in my own time at home. Once all information transferred from the old phone to the other, I figured that I was all set. What I later recognized was that my phone could not send or receive phone calls/text messages. I had panicked in a much more intense way than was really necessary. There were lots of people that I needed to contact since I had the weekend booked with plans. I then went to the closest electronic store, and they could not fix the problem. I stressed all day, and had to drive from house to house in order to develop details on all of my weekend events. What I realized was that I depend on my phone a lot more than I usually would admit. The following day, my phone got fixed and I wondered why I had gotten so upset over the phone the day before. It could have been held up stress from school and activities, but I had overreacted greatly over a small problem. Therefore, I agree with Turkle that people are surrounding their lives towards their electronics.