A. Ragnauth: Expanding the Frame

Everything has it’s own rhythm. The cars on the street, walking into your home, typing this sentence, all have a rhythm. Five days of silence impacted my habits, moo d, and efficiency. I failed within the first five minutes. Every morning, over the past six years I’d listen to music on my daily commute. I’d even have music playing in the background as I worked. This habit stopped suddenly. a newfound silence brought chaos, accompanied with sound, to clarity and patience. As a creative, music created my flow. It placed me in a mindset to complete tasks. In silence, I worked faster. All of my daily tasks were completed ahead of time. The silence made me better.

I always believed music was meant to help you. It was supposed to be a form of creative expression, but now I wonder if it was actually intended to be a distraction. Hari says “You could have all this technology, Tristan told me, but not design it to be maximally distracting. In fact, you could design it with the opposite goal: to maximally respect people’s need for sustained attention, and to interrupt them as little as possible ” (129). What does it mean, to be maximally distracting? Was music really a distraction? When I first approached this thought, I immediately shut it down. Then I thought of every moment I switched a song and suddenly got lost in a message, an email of a sale, or a scroll through Instagram. After considering this, I took a look at my screen time, with an average of eight hours on my phone, from last month. So how did a music fast sustain my attention? Well, I decided to track something simple. How many times I’d reach for my phone throughout the day.

Day one, Monday, was rough. After failing within the first five minutes of my morning commute, I went on to reach for my phone eight times that day. Day two, I reached for my phone five times. A decrease, likely due to Tuesdays being my busiest day. Day three, wasn’t much better, being at four times for the day, but by day four, I was down to three times. Now that doesn’t seem like much, but to have a lighter schedule meant longer periods of silence where I was set on staying focused and planning my lessons. On my very last day, I didn’t check my phone at all, unless I received a phone call. With each day, I became less dependent not only on music, but on my phone as a whole.

The past five days provided me with insight about myself that I never expected. It was proof this newfound silence made me better. Now my students that tried the fast weren’t as successful in not using TikTok but they understood the meaning behind it. Silence made us intentional. It was a rhythm we created on our own, not one that was set for us.