Bored and Brilliant Challenge 5: One Small Observation

Welcome to day five of our Bored and Brilliant challenge! If you're here for the first time, you'll want to catch up on The Case for Boredom, Challenge 1, Challenge 2, Challenge 3, and Challenge 4. 

Social networks help us stay connected. We love social media. But how often do we swipe past strangers' selfies, baby pictures, and career updates in lieu of the actual humans around us?  

For our second-to-last challenge (yes, there's a weekend project coming!), we want you to flex the creative muscles we've been freeing up all week. The first step is noticing. 

Your instructions: Today, go somewhere public. It could be a park, a mall, the gas station, the hallway at work or school. You pick.

Once you get there, hang out. Watch people, or objects, or anything that strikes you. Try not to be (too) creepy. Imagine what a single person is thinking, or zoom in on an uninventable detail. Just make one small observation you might have missed if your nose were glued to a screen.

If you feel inclined, and we hope you do, record that detail using a voice memo app on your phone (yes, yes, we know, but we think this is worth a pick-up). Two good ones are the built in voice memo app for iPhone or an Android one called Easy Voice Recorder. Then, email it to us at [email protected]. We always love to hear from you. We'll add it to our observation playlist below, and we might use it in an upcoming show. 

Or you can tell us about your observation in the comments below. What'd ya see? How'd it feel? 

Today's hashtag is #NTCNotice.

 

For today's challenge, we want you to take note of one person, object, or interesting, uninventable detail you would have missed if your nose were glued to your phone.