Taking time off

I’m planning a month free from social media in September.

It seems Facebook is changing our brains and not in a good way, this article alerted me to some alarming things about Facebook, and as Ruby Wax has already pointed out, it’s not like our poor brains can cope with modern life as it is.

For one month I’m going to disable all alerts, uninstall the apps, and remove myself from these two social media tools. I’ll still be blogging, and I’ll keep LinkedIn as I need it for work. I’m undecided about G+, I don’t find it as distracting as the others, and the folk I have on there don’t tend to post much, and I don’t find myself habitually dipping in ‘just to see what’s happening’. This is open for review if I find myself using G+ as a substitute, then it too shall find itself on the banned list.

What’s prompted this is a serious look at social media and the fact that it just doesn’t make me happy or productive. I think we have become slave to the tools we have created. What started as a good way to keep in touch with distant friends has now become a constant distraction. Facebook opens me up for criticism, and for hours wasted clicking through links, pictures, and seeing the inspiration porn that’s being shared that day. I can plot the movement of memes and concepts as they shift across my friends list.

The Manic PIxie Dream Girl thing that got mentioned a while back? I watched as it moved across facebook and the responses people felt they needed to make about it. Is this all there is? Someone spots an article or link, drops it into the social media pond then we all watch and react to the ripples? There’s a danger of a cultural homogeneity here, that for as much as a lot of my friends decry ‘normal’, are then defining normal by reacting in the same way to the same things.I want to find my own voice again. I want to tighten my circle of contact and focus on the outside world.

I discovered an interesting quote today:

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

? Jim Rohn

I had no idea it existed, however by its very core and the way I feel in this always-connected age, I am a watered down homogenous pasteurised skimmed version of myself.

What I want to achieve is this:

• To focus on things I want to do.
• To actually get things done and stop procrastinating and looking for public support.
• To stop over sharing and vaguebooking and start dealing with life again headon.
• To change the average of who I am, which means pulling back from the vast ocean of people I know online.
• To read more and build on the ideas I have.

Not an unachievable list certainly.

I also hope that my sense of focus comes back. Whilst writing this I have found myself conducting conversations on Facebook and twitter, clicking around on my open tabs and being distracted by the next digital shiny thing in front of me.

And that’s it, a simple idea, a simple set of goals, and one crazy person doing it.

So long for the moment online, and I’ll see you soon in the real world.

Mirrored from Never a dull moment. Please leave comments there thank you!