SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERIENCE

Social Media forms an integral part of almost every individual and I am no less. I will be taking you all through my first stint with it to my experience, the sabbatical and finally my word on what it takes to belong to Social Networking.

My first stint with Social Media

I still remember the day when I created an account on the social media site Orkut, 18/10/ 2006, two days after my birthday and it changed the way I communicate forever, I was introduced to a very addictive and an extremely powerful way of communication it was "Social Media”.

My present

I have sent more than 20,000 tweets, posted pretty nearly 300 refined photographs of pretty much everything happening in my life on Instagram, registered with unreasonably numerous places on Facebook check in, constructed a 100% complete LinkedIn profile, and posted more than 20,000 times on Facebook (clearly squandering just about two months of my life the whole time). I see my Face book timetable and Twitter notices in my fantasies. I depend on Google and Yelp for everything and I feel I am pretty much empty without social media.

The Sabbatical

I decided to take an off for a couple of days when I initially had to do this assignment.

Thus, I was prompted to take a "Social Media Sabbatical" for 2 days, at first I was not sure about it, but my close friend did it a month ago and it changed her perspective of relationships and communication. I also consulted my husband of 2 years who responded with a resounding "YES”. One of the main reasons why I wanted to do this was to make sure I was not addicted to Face book especially after reading this journal  which says "Face book Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults".

Self realizations:

It was a wonderful insight into my life without social media, for 2 days I never knew what my friends were up to, what my favourites stars were doing, the latest quiz and the trends the viral videos and the most satisfying of all stop receiving candy crush requests from my friends. I never had the urge to check my social feeds, I guess it also had to do with the fact that I knew it was just 48 hours, but it was a wonderful experience.

·         Spent quality time "talking to people I love ".

·         Visited restaurants and places with a focus of experiencing the feel and the ambience, than taking pictures to post on my twitter, instagram and facebook, and fretting over how people would react.

·         Wrote a journal, logging my daily routines, with a "pen".

·         Slept on time, than gazing my phone in the darkness.

Most important of all, spent quality time reflecting on myself, my thoughts and thinking about the time without smart phones and how productive I could have been.

Reality Bites:

After 2 days when I logged back in to my system, like the world had stopped for a moment, I had 56 face book alerts, 89 unread mails, 112 private messages, and I missed so much including my friend’s birthday, I would never have missed the birthday thanks to face book alerts, and the worst of all I missed out a very good deal on a purchase I made on my sabbatical , only if I would have checked my mail there was a coupon worth 15$ waiting for me to be redeemed . It made me think the benefits of social media, of course it helps me save money and gather information and also keep in touch with me relatives and friends in a cost effective way. Moreover, the capacity to stay in contact with loved ones permits us to keep up closer binds to our friends and family crosswise over long separations.

In a nut shell, social media is a double edged sword, it depends on how you use it and what you make of it, it also reminds me of a proverb my dad used to always remind me of “too much of anything is bad”. Social media is a wonderful tool and experience but it should be used in a way that benefits us and makes us better in every way and not otherwise.

References:

Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults. (n.d.). Retrieved February 24, 2015, from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0069841

Stroble T. (2010). A Magical Block of Time: Lessons Learned from my Digital Sabbatical