Last week, I pledged to take a break from Facebook and Twitter. I've mentioned previously that Facebook was almost "unavoidable" due to my running of advertising on behalf of a company I work for. But overall, I feel that my social media "embargo" was a liberating experience.
I saw The Social Network with Steph last week and we discussed whether Facebook is popular because it has a purpose or rather, people discover uses for it ex post facto. We couldn't come up with an answer. Social media, like most media, is created by loathsome people with loose morals for egotistical reasons. Well, it holds true for Mark Zuckerberg, anyway.
So, what the hell have I been doing?
Reading More
I have been reading more. News articles, blogs, magazines, books; you name it, I'm reading it...more. All the while not having any desire for electronic pats on the back, distracting me from actually reading what is written.
Getting Fit
As part of my ongoing personal challenge, I've been going to the gym more. I would usually struggle to go once per week, but this week I have gone there three times and plan to go once more before the week is over. My girlfriend says she notices the difference; I sure as hell don't!
Talking
Relying on social media to get critical messages (as in, ones that initiate action) is like telling a dog to pick you up from the train station. Social media, as a process has different meanings to everyone. Some see it as frivolous, others see it as a marketing tool, more as "agenda" or "trend" setting. (If they did, they certainly require the audience to be as passive as possible.) Using the phone, communicating clearly and concisely without losing the "fidelity" of the message has been a byproduct of this embargo.
Of course, my favorite part of the entire experiment is that people ask me how I'm doing. They no longer have a repository of personal information to make those judgments themselves. They become interested; they listen. I can talk with them instead of at them. Friends are genuinely surprised to know what is happening in my life and how these events effect me.
Social media had for the most part, made me feel I had reduced my life to a rolling headline. But it doesn't and shouldn't; social media attempts merely to make Princess Adelaide's whooping cough front page news all day, every day.
So what now?
I suppose I will use Twitter and Facebook again; albeit not to the inanely rapid frequency that I once did. If I ever "lapse," I can always go back into my personal social media rehab and have a great time there. I have missed talking to some people on there since we also talk outside of Twitter but not to the extent we do "on."
I do feel that Twitter and Facebook are good tools for people to have. However, like every good tool - a spoon, for example - they aren't meant to be used all the time, for every possible application. They have limitations and so do we.