My Social Media detox

Every New Year, I balance the excesses of the festive season by giving up drinking for the month of January. Actually, I usually get 3 weeks into the month and then fall spectacularly off the wagon, but at least I take solace in the fact that I’ve given my liver a break for a while.

This year, I decided to add a one month Social Media detox into the mix.

Over time, I had come to realise that that cheeky Facebook app on my phone was devouring way too much of my time. From the moment I opened my eyes in the morning, to the time I closed them at night, I’d be scrolling through my newsfeed. In the car, waiting for my coffee at Starbucks, in the middle of meetings, while on the landline, in the ad breaks while watching TV - I was mesmerised by that damn app. Addicted to the minutae of my friends’ lives, and hooked on the minute by minute activity of people who I barely knew (how did all those people end up being my “friends”??!).

And so, a couple of hours past midnight on 1 January, I deleted the Facebook app from my phone and went social media cold turkey. I had actually intended to delete my account but figured that would create way too much potential drama with people wondering why I had gone overnight from posting hourly comments and status updates to a Facebook non entity, so I chose to go dark rather than disappear.

A month later, I’ve reinstalled the app, but I’m still rather reluctant to jump back in again. I’ve been Facebook free for a month, apart from posting links to a couple of pieces I wrote for websites and wanted to share, and it has been gloriously refreshing. So what I have I learned from my self imposed Facebook Intermission?

1. I will always fill my time with useless crap
The plan was to spend the cumulative seconds and minutes of “free time” gained from the Social Media hiatus to invest in my other New Year’s resolution – to learn Hindi (properly). I downloaded various Hindi tutorials and plugged myself diligently into the podcasts. The first couple of FB free days were great – I learned a few Hindi phrases and I finally learned to count to 50. However, a few days in and I started finding excuses to do other stuff. I started reading the Daily Mail online edition rather more often than I should have done (the column of trash on the right of the page, mainly). Now instead of checking my Facebook updates I read about who is doing who in Hollywood or who attended some random party showing nipples or booty or whatever. Its official, I am addicted to gossip, and I’ve decided that I’d rather know the gossip of my nearest and dearest, than some random Z list celebrity.

2. I have way too many Facebook “friends
If you’re reading this as a piece I uploaded on Facebook, then you made the cut. Before re-embracing the demon, I deleted around 300 random souls who I am sure are very nice people indeed, but who I have either never met or have no intention of meeting. There are a lot of people on my Facebook friend list who I haven’t actually seen for more than 20 years. Despite that, I still enjoy reading about their lives, because there was something about them that once upon a time I resonated with, even if it was decades ago. And I still relate to them, many years later. And then there are a whole bunch of newcomers whose names I barely recognise. I fell prey to the modern habit of friending everyone, and accepting requests from relatively random people (complete strangers and potential sleazeballs excepted). So I’ve cleared my newsfeed – and now you know I really have a thing for you, dear Facebook friend.

3. I am actually really really interested in the boring detritus of people’s lives.
Yep, I’m one of those people who really does want to know what everyone is thinking, feeling and doing, and I enjoy my smug/sympathetic/ affronted reactions. I love the fact that other people’s misfortune occasionally makes me feel better about the fact that I’m having a bad day, and I do shed the odd tear when I read that someone has had a baby / posted about how much they love their kids / shared some story about a child who is battling some terrible disease (although those tears are more often than not tears of laughter, depending on the time of the month).

4. Twitter is shit
I keep talking about Facebook, but actually I gave up Social Media in all its forms. I really hardly noticed the rest – I find Twitter unbearable and incredibly irritating (if you’re going to post something at least make it coherent) and Pinterest and Instagram are completely insignificant to me.

5. Facebook is really useful for a lot of stuff
Forget the fact that FB satisfies my endlessly twitching thumb, it is also super helpful in organising one’s life. I forgot a load of birthdays in January (including those of some close relatives) because I haven’t had my handy Facebook reminder. I’ve missed a couple of cool things happening, and I’ve stressed over organising my own event (something planned for mid Feb), as it is so easy to create something on Facebook and invite people. Somehow, I also believe that scrolling the timeline also fires weird synapses in my brain – I remember random stuff at odd hours of the day and I wake up every morning thinking of things I need to do, and people I need to reach out to thanks to comments I’ve read. I also find the curated news items and shares really insightful, and though I tried hard to replace these with some diligent reading of various “intelligent” news sites, I landed up more not less ignorant as a result.

In summary, I know its kind of uncool these days to be a Facebook Fan, but I plan to enjoy my return to it. I’m glad that I had this little break, and decluttered my friend list. Here’s to an awesome 2015!