On Friday October 4th, 2013 I began a 48 hour social media diet. I
had no idea that this would be part of the curriculum going into this course,
and when I found out about it, I was less than pleased. You might even say I
threw a bit of a tantrum. It wasn't right as far as I was concerned. I still
lean a little in that direction.
The diet had some pretty specific
expectations: no social media sites, no email, no texting, no chatting and so
on. I could use my phone, but that was pretty much it.
As a full time single parent who is taking
a full time course load, working from home (using Elance, which could be
interpreted as a social media website) and living out of local phone range from
most of my family, social media has become a staple in my life over the past
couple of years.
It saves me a load of money to communicate
through facebook chat and texting. Right now it is also a somewhat more
important time in my life to communicate with my family in Toronto. We just
recently found out that my father is very sick with cancer and he has started
chemotherapy, so I'm in touch with my family several times each day to make
sure everything is going smoothly.
Despite the many challenges, I decided to
play ball. I like good marks and new experiences and figured I would just have
to foot the bill for a little more long distance if I wanted them.
I knew I would cheat just a bit, but
mostly I didn't. I got in touch with everybody ahead of time, let them know
that if they texted me i couldn't answer, but that I would probably
"cheat" and read hteir texts anyhow. I could call them back on teh
phone if it was necessary. From Friday night until Sunday night, I didn't
purposely load facebook.
I was amused at how many times I found Facebook loading, as if all
by itself on my phone, iPad, laptop and home computer. I never kept it open
long enough to see anything and certainly didn’t interact with it directly, and
by Saturday night, I had erased my login information for Facebook from every
device, deciding to add it again after my “diet”.
I had a few moments where I purposely texted because I didn’t want
to spend money on long distance and I was just exasperated that I couldn’t just
send my most current thoughts or questions to somebody when I wanted.
Interestingly, I had loads of work to do and had trouble
concentrating on it for the first two nights because I was irritated with not
being able to use the communication tools I had become so used to.
Then came Sunday afternoon. After less than two days off, I
suddenly found myself more focused on the moment. I knew there were things
waiting for my attention that I couldn’t deal with until Monday, but that was
okay with me all of a sudden.
Sunday night, even though I could probably have gotten on
Facebook, I went to sleep to enjoy a few more moments of relaxation and woke up
Monday morning wishing that my diet had lasted longer.
After this experience, I look forward to the end of the school
year, when I hope to do this for at least another week in 2014.
I’m copying some notes I took during the weekend from a word file
below:
------
Friday,
October 4, 2013 – 8:45pm
Day Zero:
2h15m until "blackout". I know much of my
social life revolves around social media, so I'm a little unsure how to
proceed. I can't just ignore a friend if they text me, and I can’t exactly turn
texting off. My cell phone is my only phone, so I have to leave it on much of
the time.
I have long distance family who I need to communicate
with a few times a day right now (due to hospital visits and so on), so I have
been relying on texting, Facebook, Carepages.com and Skype to keep that
communication cheap... I will probably have to cheat a little in that respect.
Will focus on the word “diet” in the Social media Diet challenge and cut down
to the bare necessities.
Still not looking forward to this.
Saturday,
October 05, 2013 – 9:56 AM
Woke up this morning after a good rest. Weekends are
always nice because I don’t have to wake up to an alarm so I get to sleep in…
but try to tell my kid that.
So I see that my phone has a text message. A good
friend of mine from Toronto wants to meet up next weekend. My friend works late
nights and might not get to sleep until as late as 4 in the morning. I texted
back. Call it cheating if you will, but I’m not going to call first thing in
the morning and wake the guy up. A text is less obtrusive and, in this case,
certainly more polite.
I also have an unlimited texting bundle on my phone
for $10 and long distance minutes would cost me.
That said, I had kind of forgotten my “diet”, so at
the time, it didn’t occur to me that I could be cheating.
Momentarily, I back out of my text messaging screen
and tap the Facebook messaging icon to see if any messages have come in while I
was in bed… whoops, my internet is off on my phone, OH YEAH, I’m not supposed
to be using Facebook.
Whelp, that was close.
Last night before “blackout” I turned off my phone
internet to remind me, and removed my Facebook account info on my tablet to
make sure I didn’t accidentally log in. Still almost had an incident when I
turned on my desktop machine in the morning. Facebook happens to be my first
“favorite” link on my favorites bar… Guess I’m more “addicted” to it than I
thought.
Am I going through withdrawal? We’ll see.
Sunday,
October 6, 2013
So I wanted to keep more notes as I’ve been going
along, but yesterday was really busy! My daughter had a birthday party here, so
there was a lot of bustling about for me.
In the morning,
she went out for a haircut with my sister. While she was doing that, I went to
pick up a few surprise decorations for the party, and her gift from Michaels.
After a quick lunch, we cleaned and reorganized our space (small apartment) to
accommodate her guests. We had an hour to rest. I tried unsuccessfully to get
some school work done, and then her friends started arriving.
Having something more important to do, kept me so
distracted from anything internet that I didn’t even think about social media
for a good part of the day yesterday.
I asked my sister to take before and after pics of my
daughter’s haircut… and then I suggested she post it on Facebook. Was that
cheating?
Sunday,
October 6, 2013 – 7:02 PM
Okay, I admit it. I’m getting annoyed. Counting the
hours until I can satisfy my curiosity about what’s happening on Facebook.
Would also *really* like to communicate with my group for my group project,
since I’m supposed to have something ready for them for tomorrow and I want to
reassure them that it will be done, as well as specify a time, since I probably
won’t finish until the night time.
I have some great pictures I took of Angela’s birthday
party that I want to send to her mother. I also find that I’m distracted by the
fact that I can’t “do” social networking because I’m in the mental habit of
getting social for so many things in life.
I have been texting occasionally when it is unavoidable.
I keep an extra balance on my cell phone for long distance, and today I
actually ended up using it up to talk to people in Toronto who I would normally
text instead.
Since it is so available, I have integrated Facebook
and texting into my life as a means of saving money and communicating quickly.
It has become a replacement for calling by phone.
I wonder if
people bother knocking on doors to see if their friends are home anymore. These
days, I would probably text or send a chat message first and only go over if I
knew for sure somebody was there. Hell, sometimes, I use Facebook instead of
visiting somebody in person anyhow.
I’ve got to get back to some other schoolwork now.
Guess I’m just venting… (and man, did it ever feel good.)
Monday,
October 7, 2013 – 12:05 AM
About to load up Facebook. Was busy catching up on an
episode of a show that will go unnamed (guilty pleasure) but curious to see if
I actually missed anything.
… Yup. Nothing out of the ordinary. One chat message
from a family member looking for info about my father and 28 various “items of
interest”, only one of which was actually interesting to me (the picture I
asked my sister to upload of my daughter’s before and after haircut images).
I feel a bit incomplete. Like I haven’t quite spent
enough time away. There was no huge revelation. The weekend was busy. I
definitely wouldn’t have spent that much time on Facebook anyhow.
…things that make you go hmmm, right?
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