An incredible amount of time in this day and age revolves around technology. According to data from an Ad Week article on social media trends, we spend 1.72 hours per day on social media platforms, and in one week it totals up to 12.04 hours. That is a huge chunk of our day, especially when you factor in television and streaming time to it. Sadly, the amount of time spent on social media continues to rise every year.
So, I decided I was going to test something out.
I went 7 days without social media and was able to get an incredible amount of work done and truly focus on my assignments without social media distractions. It was an awesome, but frustrating 7 days.
I kept a journal of how I felt each day while being social media free, and these were my thoughts!
Day 1: Omg this is going to be so great because now I have the chance to get so much work done.
Day 2: How did it just take me only an hour to write that entire paper?
Day 3: Well… I’ve finished all my work and I’m a little bored. I should check Instagr…oh wait…!!
Day 4: I guess I’ll clean the dust off my…fan…?
Day 5: Two more days and I can post that picture I took FIVE DAYS AGO!!!!
Day 6: * Sigh *
Day 7: This is so sad. Why does social media have such an impact on our lives? There is so much to see if we put down our phones for even just an hour everyday. I need to do this more often.
I found myself instinctively picking up my phone to check Instagram or Facebook. I would then quickly stop myself and I finally recognized how insane it is that social media (and technology in general) have such an impact on our time.
Why is that? Why have we let something the size of a Pop-Tart (shoutout to the iPhone 6 plus!) have so much power in our lives? And why do we let the what is going on in the real world continue to pass us by, and ignore it, while we are so deep into our social media feeds?
Personally, I think it has turned into this because we have motives to post, and the fact is that we have simply turned into a technology driven society. I’ll be the first one to admit: I’ve posted things solely to prove a point or directed at someone to see, whether it is to impress them or just make them mad.
It is unfortunate that social media can have so many negative influences on our lives. It can also be a huge distraction from things we need to pay more attention to, relationships we need to put more effort in, and things going on in the world that we we might miss because we are being distracted by social media.
I’m not trying to hate on social media or give it a bad rep, but I learned a lot throughout my week without using it. One of the biggest things I learned was that we should use it for good and not let it take over so much of our time.
Food for thought: Leave your phone behind for a few hours. Sit back and observe instead of constantly feeling like you have to take a picture of everything or post whatever you’re doing. And, maybe you don’t have to do a whole week without social media, but just try to go a few hours a day without it. I guarantee that you won’t regret it and I bet you’ll get a lot accomplished!
For more information on social media trends and data visit:http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/time-spent-online/613474