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What is social media?

What makes social media, social is the conversation, the dialogue. Yet, these days true open dialogue seems hard to come by. This is a trend I have been watching for the last 16 months. Seems, there are people who when they find out you do not agree with them, immediately seem to become ultra critical. Debate, dialogue and conversation exploring difficult topics online in social media circles, seems few and far between, Disagreement seems like bait and people take the bait, whether it was intentional or not, all the time. It is like it is an invitation or a taunting for a verbal fight.

Confrontation seems to the order of the day.

Sad.

I have noticed this behaviour increasingly escalate into neo hate speech. Which is the reason I took a break from social media. Plus I don’t need to see negative commentary, witness people feign concern and express quasi sentimental posts, repeated in my news feed 40-50 times. If you are going to post something at least put some real thought into your post. The  Use your words, express yourself and most important build and expand the conversation.

Please, do that and we all win.

Do that and I will gladly participate and play within a wide ranging conversation.

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Mornings without Social Media

Audio Version

I’m surprised at the amount of extra headspace, room to think I am experiencing. For example, I am actually writing instead of listening, recording or reading. Of course, I wonder if anybody will be reading this. There’s a part of me that says it doesn’t matter, because I’m writing for myself. The purpose of this test is to take the time to be reflective and truly be with my own thoughts.

This is the first morning where I have not indulged in social media activities. It’s pretty interesting how pernicious the desire to see what other people are doing and talking about actually is. The attraction to open apps is not as strong as I thought it would be. I feel drawn to see what other people are doing and talking about. Apps like Bumpers, Anchor, Facebook, Twitter all provide the opportunity to observe and listen in on peoples lives. However, I could accomplish the same thing by picking up the phone and calling them.

I wonder if I will call some people? I wonder how the conversation will go? Will they have time to talk? Will it be different or weird?

What I’m most fascinated with is the extra mental bandwidth I am sensing. Room to think, far less expectations and far less of the accompanying tension. This is a creative tension, a drive to “create” and share it with others. Which is the very reason I decided to take the break from social media.

I sensed that there was a great deal of my creative energy being consumed participating in social media. This creative energy and flow is now available to be used for my own side projects, books or other creative endeavours. This is the reason I decided to eliminate social media temporarily. Intuitively, I sensed this was happening, now I have my own post facto rationale and results which confirm my conclusions.

Anxiety & Fear of Missing Out (8:43 am)

I am now on my iPad Pro and I forgot to modify my notications on this device. I am surprised at the anxiety I felt as I turned off Facebook and Twitter notifications. I had already compeleted a significant pruning of my notifications months before.

I feel free… (9:02 AM)

I am sitting here looking out the window and am noticing the absence of the tension to perform. I definitely feel much more in control of my day. No longer filling up every moment it’s social media pasts, recordings etc. Ahhh…

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What happens when you avoid social media?

Today I decided to temporarily avoid social media. I was out and about this afternoon, I needed a break away from home and office. I decide on a whim to stop at Booster Juice and who sees me from the road and turns in it say hello? Yogi Anoop!

Yogi is such a breath of fresh air. He is always optimistic, living life and even cloudy weather!