Antisocial? Asocial? Goodbye Social!

So, back in August, after much internal debate and a couple of experiments with notifications I have decided to take a break from social media. Complete. not a case of “check it less” but a case of “close the accounts” and see how I feel about it.

I deactivated Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and closed Whatsapp. The difference is that, for a period around 21 days, you can re-activate Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and all is as it was, but Whatsapp just deletes your history. Of course, you can download your Whatsapp account and Twitter account to your local machine to save them – should you so wish.

The break did me good. I wasn’t worrying all the time about seeing what others had posted, or posting myself, I was simply “off the social grid”. After a week or so I went back, one social channel at a time, and stayed on for a couple of weeks then did it all again. By the end of the second break I had pretty well undone the hold social media had – I was never an addict you understand, but I was checking it way too often.

After the second break I found I had a much healthier relationship with all of the channels. I check them a couple of times a day, have flushed out all those people I liked and followed but didn’t really know and all those who post or tweet things that continually wind me up. I now have perfectly manageable feeds that meet both my work and social needs without swamping me or taking too much of my time. I can keep up with family, friends, local events and important business issues without trawling through masses of trash and rubbish (there are still plenty of kittens, fortunately) and if I add a new like/follow then I check after a week or so if  it is adding to my life and ditch it if not.

Social media is now to me as it should be, just a set of footnotes rather than the whole story 😉

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