Gen Y Actually Feels Liberated Without Gadgets

New findings show that generation Y whose lives are built around technology and convenience, and who think their lives are incomplete without gadgets actually felt liberated and happy when disconnected from it.

Hand-held gadgets have become a must thing for Generation Y.

Young professionals check their emails before they go to bed. Some even admit to sleeping with their phone under their pillow. Music, internet banking, GPS or weekend plans are never further than the pockets of today's digital natives.

For many it boggles the mind to think how their forebears worked, socialized and navigated without a plethora of hand-held devices.

But when they were actually left detached from all these facilities they ultimately realized the pleasure and joy of being disconnected from the world.

To check this truth, the Sydney Morning Herald enlisted four volunteers go cold turkey for a week.

At first the volunteers were apprehensive.

"I 'do' social media for a living so this experiment is a big deal for me," said Will Ockenden, a social media consultant for the PR firm Lucre.

Jo Craig, a blogger, admitted to being obsessed with her BlackBerry and feeling naked leaving home without it.

For some, doubt quickly turned to frustration. Work and study were affected. It took the spontaneity out of life, some said, and despite the oft-held view that social networking sites such as Facebook lead young people to swap real-life connections for online existences, the volunteers quickly found that being cut off from the social networking loop made it harder to meet friends offline.

All our volunteers failed at least once but at some point they also embraced the freedom.

"It was a really liberating feeling that no one knew where I was, not even Apple," a volunteer, Katerina Morjanoff, said.

"Critics think we're being hollowed out by this constant buffering. I don't believe that but I do believe we potentially sacrifice depth in our own thinking because we're too busy connecting. There's a real joy in having a disconnected space, and people will begin to pursue that," the volunteers said.

Source: ANI