When Professor Usher assigned this assignment -- The 24 hour social media fast-- I was really skeptical on how this would play out.
I asked myself in my head-- Are people really going to take this seriously? What platforms are going to be the hardest to stay away from? What day would make the most sense? What counts as social media? and most of all, What if I miss something important?
1. GOING INTO IT ALL
Toughest question: WHAT DAY WOULD I DO IT?
- I knew it could definitely not be on a weekday
- I knew Sunday was Easter... I would be too tempted
- I going to be working in a newsroom Saturday and Sunday, and figured it would be too hard to stray away from Twitter
- I planned for Friday.... but forgot and totally failed.
- So Saturday, at work, it was.
What I assumed beforehand?
- I knew I wouldn't miss Twitter so much, I used to use it to express my daily thoughts or frustrations, but now that I have professors, classmates, and co-workers on my Twitter account, I have tried to only post about meaningful things relating to my work or media-- but mostly just this class.
- I knew Snapchat and Instagram would be the hardest. I use snapchat as a way to text a lot of my friends EVERYDAY.-- Particularly my friends abroad.
- Indifferent about Facebook, I was worried I would miss a birthday, that's all.
- I was not sure if Whatsapp counted as social media, I took it upon myself to assume it was not and proceeded to use it. I used the same rationale for Youtube.
2. IN THE MIDST OF IT ALL
MAIN THOUGHT: I WAS BORED
- I was working in a news room, where the same story all weekend was North Korea and its new missiles. There were a whopping 3 people in the whole newsroom. It was not busy. I felt the constant need to reach for my phone, just to check for notifications.
WHAT I DID
- I went to actual news sites and wire sources in one of our company programs to get updates.
- I spoke to my boss lot, a lot.
- I listened to a lot more music (when I was not at work)
- I watched more online videos.
- I put my phone in my bag, rather than on my desk
This famous (and one of my favorites) meme the appropriate representation of how what I would maybe act with a pre social media/pre-Internet journalists ----->
WHAT I DIDNT DO
- A lot of my classmates said they actually deleted their social media applications, removed notifications, or set up website blockers -- I didn't. I didn't think about it actually, I trusted my self control.
3. WHAT I NOTICED
You can still function on the internet without social media
- Although felt like I was "cheating it " because i was instead of going on Facebook to watch videos, I went to the source... Youtube
- Instead of going to Twitter with all my news platforms on one site-- I went to the source directly
- Instead of snapchatting my friends-- I had the option to send them a normal text message
4. FINAL THOUGHTS
The assignment made me sit back, pause and ask myself," How obsessed with my phone and social media am I?" As mentioned in class on Wednesday, I made a comment about how I undeniably document everything via photo or video. I decided to go through some of my photo albums on my computer t o see how many pictures I could find that showed myself or someone else glued to a phone or laptop. I shocked myself and found more than I thought.
** It took less than 4-5 minutes to scroll through SOME of my albums to find 7 photos of myself or someone else on their phone. ***
Lastly,
I recently had a conversation with a friend who was talking about his "Insta theme". I was confused by what he meant. He meant matching his colors and filters so that he could have an overall "theme" to his page. I thought it was ridiculous. I would personally never do something like that. I noticed celebrities like Kim Kardashian live by this. Using only a certain filter for a period of time. Which made me realize we are all sort of our own personal social media manager. We all want to be recognize in some form of another, we mimic what we see from influencers and we hope it will produce the same results. Commercialism is at an all-time peak with my generation.
Safe to say when I finished the cleanse, I was ready to bust a move.
I love social media, do I let it take over my life? No. Can it? Only as much as you let it.