Social Media Fast: A Sorta/Kinda Digital Detox
Friday, March 08, 2013
Yes, I went on a social media fast for two long and hard tweet-less, like-less weeks. I’m not certain whether I deserve either a gold medal or a diamond tiara for doing such but I sure as heck am giving myself a big pat at the back, ha! The forced hiatus randomly set in thirteen days ago, the first of its kind for me. The plan was to reclaim my pre-Facebook and pre-Twitter life when computers weren’t the ones I’d be in front of first thing in the morning, with sleep still in my eyes, as the screen light takes me from notifications to notifications that I’ve missed over night, or be curled up under a bed cover at night with a mobile phone in hand and catch myself aimlessly wandering on my newsfeed, lost in a sea of other people’s tweets when what I really need is a sleep. And so, I welcomed the idea and in the process, learned these meaningful insights from being away:
- I managed to put my social media appetite under control by committing to staying offline while doing something no matter how mundane that task may be. To avoid the looming guilt trip, I had to deactivate my Facebook account and uninstall Tweetdeck on my computer. The transition was not easy to say the least, but as I approached the fourth day of my social media fast and coming in at fifth, I gradually learned to let these notifications sit around for awhile and it felt nice to not be stalled on the social media streams for once .
- Unplugging from the social media allowed me to create set of schedules for myself and at the same time made me conscious of the amount of time I invest on certain activities. I'm scrapping off my social media break in between work from now on in order to be more productive. Exhibit A., I especially made these Months of the Year and Days of the Week charts for my Language class which my students absolutely loved and had so much fun learning, leaving little Miss Anie feeling so accomplished! :)
- Outside social media, I had the opportunity to once again picked up an old-fashioned habits like reading print books, writing by hand, watching on an actual TV with commercials (hate 'em!) in the company of tangible people whom you can sensibly commentate with (big shout out to Ate Tin and Sab).
- The opinionated and big advocate of self-expression in me finally learned to shut up, keep my opinions unstated, detach myself from the impulse of constantly participating in non-stop thread and seep into the pleasure of its liberating effect. It’s freeing to think that I don’t have to weigh in on certain matters every single time and that's perfectly okay.
- And lastly, I learned to refrain from plunking everything into a status update or into a tweet for others to virtually absorb and just savor a moment for myself and appreciate all parts of life and being alive and be at present in the ‘NOW’.
This is not to say that there’s intrinsically wrong with social media. On contrary, it is a good tool and a powerful one at that but unplugging yourself from it every once in awhile is beneficial as well. If anything, we should resolve ourselves to be more intentional about how we use up our time, especially on social media and assess how our online presence impacts us. Ya, feel me?
On a lighter note, I thought I should be celebrating or something but being social media-free for 13 days is pretty anticlimactic… other than that, it’s good to be back!
On a lighter note, I thought I should be celebrating or something but being social media-free for 13 days is pretty anticlimactic… other than that, it’s good to be back!
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