Were We Actually Unplugged?
A look at the successes and shortcomings of the Willy Unplugged day.
Banner created by iWilliston for #WillyUnplugged.
On Friday, January 23rd, the social media team, also known as iWilliston, hosted a school-wide event promoting the unplugging of all technology and social media for the day. Students, teachers, and staff were all encouraged to turn off their devices for the day.
The event was first proposed by Julia Krupp ’15, a member of the team, who got the idea from learning about a day other schools have been participating in called “Blackout Day.” The term #WillyUnplugged was created to “distinguish it from other efforts,” Hanley stated in an interview.
The team released a statement in a blog post saying that “#WillyUnplugged is our way of raising awareness about how dependent people are on their various electronics and social media platforms.” Lauren Helm ’14 added in a separate post that “clicking on an app such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook is a much easier way to keep up with everyone’s daily social lives than talking to every single friend in person.”
Students wait in line for their Surface Pros during Welcome Day 2013. Many cited the Surface’s integral role in Williston student’s lives as a reason they could not truly “unplug.”
iWilliston promoted the event in various ways including their social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook), made announcements during weekly assembly, and made flyers which were hung up throughout Williston.
In an interview with Rachael Hanley, iWilliston’s faculty leader, she compared the unplugged day to a “day-long fast” that her parents recently partook in. “It made them much more aware of how much food influences their daily routine,” stated Hanley. She added, “you realize how much it’s been incorporated in your day” and are therefore better able to see how much it influences your everyday life and “appreciate it more.”
At the end of the day, Ms. Hanley reluctantly admitted that the day did not as go as well as planned, and she predicted that not everyone accepted the challenge. However, she did believe that the day was a success because “it raised a lot of awareness about technology and that was really the whole point.” Hanley added that she would promote the day more in advance, and she suspected there was some “confusion about what people were and weren’t supposed to use.”
Loading ...In a survey sent out to all students, staff, and faculty, 55 out of the 80 people who responded said that they did not participate in #WillyUnplugged. Almost half of those people that did not participate said that they needed to use their devices for school or work, one even stating that “we are a technology based school, it’s basically impossible to go unplugged.”
However, the responses were not all negative. In fact, more than half of the responders that did participate said that they wanted to see how reliant they were on technology.
As for the future, Hanley said that she would love to continue this day for many years to come and is hopeful that “the team would come up with other creative ways to employ it.”
