I’m an addict!
There, I’ve finally admitted it. My addiction is one of social media consumption. I use social media too much, so much so that I’ve decided to try a series of experiments over the next few months.
My first experiment will be to refrain from using social media for around a month. Tomorrow is the 1st of June, an ideal day to begin the test. So from midnight tonight I will be taking a break from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google +.
I’m going cold turkey, deleting SM apps from my phone and blocking their sites on my laptop. “Why are you doing this” I hear you cry, well it’s quite simple really. I’m going in search of freedom. I don’t want to be a slave to the technology that demands to be fed, every minute of every hour, of every day. The black dog has been scratching at the door in the back of my mind, making me feel anxious and agitated. This has made me think about how social media affects our moods and our sense of well-being. We are social creatures by nature with a thirst for information. Today there is no shortage of content to consume and ways to share what you’ve discovered with the world.
BUT, do we need to know what people we barely know are doing everyday? I think not! I’ve felt myself being sucked further and further into the spiralling vortex of the over sharing of stuff that people really couldn’t give a shit about. Somehow I’ve begun to believe that I’m making some sort of difference to the world by making my personal views about all manner of things visible to everyone. I know you don’t really care, because, actually, I don’t care either! Now that doesn’t mean that I don’t like to see pictures of my friends and their families having fun and living life. I do, but I’d like to see and do those things with those people, physically and not through a screen. I want to be able to express myself fully to you, not be misinterpreted by my crappy use of the English language. It’s very hard to express the full range of emotions by typing things out.
I become anxious when I don’t see regular updates from the people I care about the most. A simple solution would be to pick up the phone and make a call, just to say “how’s it going?”, but instead I send messages via various apps and then eagerly wait for responses that don’t always come. This then creates doubt which then increases the anxiety. It’s an addiction. It has to be treated.
So in an attempt to keep depression at bay I am going to be seeking out those physical connections, improving my relationships with proximity and filling my head with important stuff, the sort of stuff you find in books and by sitting down with someone, looking into their eyes and making a real connection. I guess this is a search for happiness in the real world.
The next experiment will be revealed once this one is concluded.
As always my blog, this blog will be my only concession to this experiment. It isn’t social media is it?
Anyway, see you in July, maybe?
Until next time, adieu. Z
