So, yesterday I made the wise decision to not check Facebook on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I feel I am spending way too much time on social media, and thought it would be a good thing for me.
It is 8:57am on Tuesday. I have been at work for 32 minutes. I already have had to fight the urge to open up Facebook SIX TIMES.
Did I mention I compulsively checked it this morning? That doesn't bother me too much though, it's part of my wake-up routine to see what people are up to, read articles posted, get some pop news. I should have launched my BBC app instead to get the news, but truth be told, I am sick and tired of reading about the most recent bombing in some god-forsaken country, or what some idiotic political pundit has said about the next political-economic crisis this country faces. (Can you tell I'm a bit bitter this morning?)
In any event, I figured this would be good cause to do a little experiment and explore the addiction to social media.
Everyone uses social media for different reasons. Parents may use it to keep tabs on kids or to share photos and updates to those distant relatives or people close to the family. Some people use it for their business, some for artistic reasons, and most use it as an outlet of some fashion. For me, I am terrible with my phone. I hate talking on it, I never return calls, and lately I've even gotten pretty bad about responding to text messages. Don't believe me? Here's a screen shot of my iPhone I took just now:
108 unresponded to text messages. And that's not even my record! Not to mention those 57 unlistened to voicemails... uuugh.
In any event, social media (namely, Facebook) is my preferred medium of communication, mostly because I can multitask it. I can easily share information, events, or important news, I can coordinate volleyball games using the groups I belong to, I can "have conversations" with people via chat without them being able to see I am doing the same thing with 12 pther people at the same time... I can keep in touch with my international friends, and I can stay up to date with people without the invasive measure of setting up one-on-one time.
For me, Facebook allows me to indulge in my DISLIKE for having to devote exclusive one-on-one face time with people which, of course, comes with the requirement of giving them my fully-undividied attention. With Facebook, it allows me to maximize the benefit of having many friends while minimizing the maintenance time needed to nurture those friendships. I personally march to the beat of my own drum and while I am incredibly social (when I want to be), I also need a LOT of space. I don't do well with commitments of any sort, they make me feel trapped and constricted. I can count the number of people on two hands that I willingly look forward to and enjoy one-on-one time with.
But I'd be remiss to say that I didn't use Facebook as an extension of my identity and self-expression. Not feeling connected, or having the illusion that people are aware of my existence by way of my status updates, is actually a formidable discouragement against distancing oneself from social media. I know this is only Day One (and I'm only doing this 2 days a week!) but I feel this will definitely be an enlightening experience, for sure.
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