For my digital detox, I chose to try option number 4. To do so, I set my phone to do not disturb whenever I was in group settings or whenever I needed to focus on completing a specific task. I chose to try do not disturb because my phone gets a lot of notifications, which either distract me because I feel the need to check my phone every time it buzzes or sometimes my phone even distracts others because it is buzzing so often. Overall, the digital detox was relatively successful because it definitely resulted in myself and everyone else around me being a lot less distracted and focused on spending time together instead. However, whenever I would leave my phone on do not disturb for long periods of time, I found that it was often quite difficult to catch up on everything I missed, which is not always a bad thing because the need to always feel informed and up to date is not always a good one, but if I were to miss a truly important email or text that would be bad, so Apple might want to look into making it easier to catch up on important things you missed while the phone was on do not disturb. Based on my experience so far, I think I will continue to use do not disturb going forward because it was helpful for getting me to focus on spending time with others in person or focusing on completing tasks. However, I will try to be more cognizant of how long I go without checking my phone, so that my phone doesn’t completely overflow with notifications to the point where I can’t even find everything I missed.

This is what I created while brainstorming and outlining the story map I will be creating for my final project. The topic of my final project will be “How have social media and echo chambers impacted political polarization in the US?”

In this project, I discuss the unequal living conditions at Wooster and the results of this issue.

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/79eef53a52dd4fd48ea6684dc700a0dd