I'm sitting once again in my favorite locale, the coffee shop, sipping on the "new" Fall flavors. Not a Pumpkin Spice Latte, in my case an Iced Toasted Vanilla Brown Sugar Latte, I added some cinnamon too, yum yum. Anyway, I digress. Last week I decided to limit my social media usage. I have completely "gone off" Facebook, very rarely Tweet, Snap once in a while and barely go on Instagram. I've decided that I feel fine being "antisocial". Here's why.....
1. I've gotten further in the book I was reading, Voyager, by Diana Gabaldon. The new season of Outlander starts tomorrow and I haven't finished the third book. I started reading it in July. Then I got sick and stopped reading completely.
2. I spend more time talking to my hubby and playing with my puppies.
3. I do more things around the house.
4. I stay latter at work, to finish my grading, so that I don't have to take things home over the weekend. This may not really be the result of staying off social media. This year I've decided to stay at work until 5, every night, so I can spend that time grading on weekdays. I'd rather reserve my weekends to doing the things I love, like sitting in a coffee shop, sipping my favorite fall drink. It's peaceful in my classroom, I'm not tempted to pickup my phone and see what everyone is doing.
5. I've been going to be earlier. I get up every morning at 5. By not spending time on social media, I get a much better night's rest.
So far, I'm really liking the "antisocial" thing. I completely understand the irony of blogging about how antisocial I'm being. Anyway, see you next week!
Since watching Ingrid Goes West, I've decided to take a minute and get off of social media platforms. I was talking to my mom last night and told her that it's easier for me to text someone, than have to talk to them on the phone. I'd rather just read their text, and respond quickly, rather than having to speak to them. Having to talk to someone takes so much more time and is so much more work. That's why I like being on social media.
I'm not leaving all social media platforms, I'm still going to text. I have some makeup coming next week, so I'm going to post pictures of it on my Instagram page. I'm going to watch the videos I usually watch on YouTube and Snap Chat, but for this experiment, my time on those platforms will be very limited and I'm not posting on Facebook. I've already logged out of my accounts on both my phone and tablet. I'm not going to log out of my account on my laptop. I don't spend as much time on my laptop, as I do my tablet and phone. I will still check out Yelp and post to Twitter, so I won't be completely silent or cut off.
I'm going to journal my experience daily, post the journal midway through, on my blog Facebook page, and then post again at the end of the "experiment", hoping I make it an entire month. I will be accessing my email. There is something that I applied for as a brand ambassador, if I get approved I will log back into Facebook before the end of the month. I'm excited to test this out and be SOCIAL AGAIN, be PRESENT AGAIN and I want to see how long I can actually last. Ten years ago, I didn't have Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, Instagram, Snap Chat, Goodreads, and YouTube. What did I do with my time then? I wasn't on MySpace like the rest of the people my age. I was so anti-MySpace, I thought it silly, but here I am now, a "Social Media Zombie".
With that, I wish everyone a great month, may the force be with all of you (and with me). I wonder how much the world will change in a month??
Just a side note, I'm not against social media. It's a great way to keep up with the family and friends I don't see on a regular basis, because of distance or complex schedules.
