Kind of a project update
For my research project I have decided to do more research into taking breaks from social media... why people do so and the benefits it brings, along with the negative effects social media may have had that caused the break.
Social Media is a huge resource to find people that have taken a break for a short period of time but it is nearly impossible to use social media to find people that have disconnected completely. BUT! I was through conversation was put in contact with someone who has quit facebook and will never return. I wanted to share her thoughts with you-
She had taken time off before she quit completely, mostly during the election season, which I don't think was an uncommon thing to do. But at the beginning of the year she realized, so little of her friends list had interacted with her on facebook in the past 5 years, even less had spoken to her in person and very very few had a relationship with her where they came to her house. My immediate thought was maybe she just friended a bunch of randoms but these were all people she went to high school with or had met since then. So she realized, facebook interactions were not only preventing face to face interactions, but decreasing the value of those interactions as they happened. So in January of 2018 she sent out a final post letting her friends know that she would be deleting the app from her phone and would not be getting back online. She left her phone number if anyone wanted to connect or have a face to face interaction... only to have none of her friends contact her.
She didn't mind that, it showed how little relevance those friends had in her life. She is enjoying spending free time with her family and on her farm and doesn't miss facebook at all.
I found that pretty inspiring and rather relatable. Her facebook is what my instagram is to me. People that only sometimes interact with my posts, if ever and rarely interact with me in person. So I decided I would remove my personal account from my phone. ( I obviously have to keep up with my dogs account ). While I could have silently hopped offline, I decided to create a post specifically to see if I would get any responses or have anyone reach out. I didn't share my phone number.
I had 2 people comment, one said "you had an instagram?" haha, and the other was a compliment that they would miss seeing my pics and my captions ( I do think hard on my captions yall).
I had 2 people text me. One who saw the post and wanted to touch base and spend time with me in person (woohoo human interaction!) And another who was curious to why I was planning on taking my hiatus. I was surprised that after giving my explanation they were able to agree with my points and think about all the ways they could put the time on social media into something else.
This is all a minor piece of my data but I was excited to 1) find someone who really deleted all social media with what is planned to be for good and to see that 2) out of my 1000+ followers, 2 people used a different source to contact me and only 1 expressed the desire to have a face to face conversation.
Social Media is a huge resource to find people that have taken a break for a short period of time but it is nearly impossible to use social media to find people that have disconnected completely. BUT! I was through conversation was put in contact with someone who has quit facebook and will never return. I wanted to share her thoughts with you-
She had taken time off before she quit completely, mostly during the election season, which I don't think was an uncommon thing to do. But at the beginning of the year she realized, so little of her friends list had interacted with her on facebook in the past 5 years, even less had spoken to her in person and very very few had a relationship with her where they came to her house. My immediate thought was maybe she just friended a bunch of randoms but these were all people she went to high school with or had met since then. So she realized, facebook interactions were not only preventing face to face interactions, but decreasing the value of those interactions as they happened. So in January of 2018 she sent out a final post letting her friends know that she would be deleting the app from her phone and would not be getting back online. She left her phone number if anyone wanted to connect or have a face to face interaction... only to have none of her friends contact her.
She didn't mind that, it showed how little relevance those friends had in her life. She is enjoying spending free time with her family and on her farm and doesn't miss facebook at all.
I found that pretty inspiring and rather relatable. Her facebook is what my instagram is to me. People that only sometimes interact with my posts, if ever and rarely interact with me in person. So I decided I would remove my personal account from my phone. ( I obviously have to keep up with my dogs account ). While I could have silently hopped offline, I decided to create a post specifically to see if I would get any responses or have anyone reach out. I didn't share my phone number.
I had 2 people comment, one said "you had an instagram?" haha, and the other was a compliment that they would miss seeing my pics and my captions ( I do think hard on my captions yall).
I had 2 people text me. One who saw the post and wanted to touch base and spend time with me in person (woohoo human interaction!) And another who was curious to why I was planning on taking my hiatus. I was surprised that after giving my explanation they were able to agree with my points and think about all the ways they could put the time on social media into something else.
This is all a minor piece of my data but I was excited to 1) find someone who really deleted all social media with what is planned to be for good and to see that 2) out of my 1000+ followers, 2 people used a different source to contact me and only 1 expressed the desire to have a face to face conversation.
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