Ever since I spent time in Japan, disconnected from the Internet but once a day, I’ve been thinking a lot about how much time I consume staring at my phone. What I’ve come to realize is that I’ve got a bit of an obsession with updates, buzzes, tweets, grams, posts, and so on. What’s worse is the amount of time I devote to these pursuits, without a perceivable gain.
Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy your latest cat photo, or that game/movie/crib/car you are going to buy, or even that joke you made. But what benefit am I getting other than to simply amuse myself and while away my time.
So, I’ve decided to put social on snooze for at least the month of June. I’ve deleted all the apps off my phone, and am going to start carrying around a book with me. Every time I have an urge to check “all the things” instead I’ll read a few pages out of my book. If I’m home that might translate to watching a movie, or playing a video game. Anything but the black hole that can be social networks.
Finally each evening I’m going to check my notifications to keep updated with direct communication. But I will still avoid swiping through each and every update you all might have to share.
Maybe, given a few weeks of my lack of updates, when we see each other next we will have more to talk about other than confirming we each have read each other’s updates, seen each other’s photos, or liked the same pages.
So long, and thanks for all the updates!
Edit – I’m quitting reddit too
This is partially why I have two Twitter accounts, and make heavy use of the Facebook “hide” feature. More often than not I prefer to see only a few updates from the people I care most about.
I hear ya, though. I check all the things before going to bed. Sometimes I’m sitting there scrolling and scrolling and wondering why I’m not just already asleep instead of swiping my thumb past a bunch of updates that don’t actually benefit me in any way.
I hear you:)
@Sarah – I heavily use “hide” on Facebook, and I even began to “mute” many of the people I follow on Twitter (using Tweetbot). But it became less about the number of updates I saw, and more about the number of times I went to go check them and the amount of time I spent.