Wired Editor-in-Chief Explains Why He Won't Leave Social Media

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Three years ago, Jesse Hempel announced a kind of boycott of social networks, after which she left them for a certain time every year. She once again spent the last month of last summer in isolation, making a decision for herself to abandon such experiments in the future. What motivated her and what benefits can be derived from such prohibitions - Jesse said in her column on Wired.

It was the sixteenth day of my isolation from social networks. I cheated. Looked for an email address that I couldn't find, but knew it belonged to a guy who could always be contacted on Twitter. I logged in, tweeted him mentioning him, and quickly got the information I was looking for. Another friend of mine also answered, having written only one word in private messages: "Gotcha!" He was right, I lost - and this was not the first time I cheated.

A month earlier, I announced my third annual social media phase-out. I quit all apps, moved them to a separate folder, and turned off notifications. She told her friends that it would be possible to contact me only by phone. I invited the readers of Wired to go through this test with me, and more than a hundred people responded with a desire to join. I don’t know how their month went, but it seemed to me long, and the desire for internet hygiene quickly disappeared. I cheated a lot.

Some of my deceptions had a specific purpose. Once I needed the address of an event I was planning to attend, and an invitation came to me on Facebook. Later, there I looked for information about the interlocutor for the upcoming interview.

However, most of my punctures were accidental. During my isolation, I realized that social networks became part of almost everything I used on a daily basis. A Facebook account was needed to log into Uber, listen to music while running at RockMyRun, find an apartment on Airbnb, and use the MapMyRide navigation app for cyclists. Even in Rise, where I send pictures of food, after which the nutritionist advises me to eat less chocolate and more spinach, I needed my social media account.

Then a trip to a country with expensive mobile communications awaited me. Deciding to save money, I used Wi-Fi to call home, opened Google Hangouts for video chat, and started sending photos while staying connected. Social media took over completely.

Perhaps my "cleanup" shouldn't be taken literally as a complete rejection of social software. Then nothing terrible happened, and at such moments I begin to behave like a nutritionist who insists on the benefits of moderate consumption of chocolate. The truth is that every year I did this test for myself, not trying to eradicate social media from my life. It was a desire to find out what they were helping and what they were hindering me. My punctures clearly indicated areas of my life where I benefit most from them. After all, let's be honest, in 2015 social networks are the WHOLE INTERNET. The rest of the time? I just didn't need Facebook that much.

During my refusal, there have been many changes, and here are the best ones:

I've read a lot of news. I read directly from the source and wondered how much time I spent on social networks. I had to do something about it, because every morning I woke up, tried to start working, and after a few minutes my attention was scattered, and I was immersed in Twitter, Facebook or my partner's Pinterest feed. At first, it was difficult for me to force myself to focus on work. Soon the strength of my concentration began to grow, and I trained myself to work for an extended period of time. When I needed a break, I opened The New York Times, which replaced my news feed.

I met with friends. I called them, and it was embarrassing, because usually on the phone I did not communicate with anyone except my mother and girlfriend. Before that, I had two communication models: I scrolled the feeds of friends on social networks, liked and sometimes commented on some posts, continuing the conversation in mail or messages, or made an appointment for the next personal meeting. The problem is that I am usually very busy and such meetings are rare. My constant feed tracking kept me up to date with old school photos or happy vacation shots, but I had no idea what was really going on with these people. Last month, I spoke with a friend who was thinking about parting, and with another whose father was very sick. None of these conversations were lengthy, but both were extremely revealing. Talking one-on-one about what gnaws and bothers my friends brought us closer together.

I was wasting my time. A lot of time. In the subway, I leafed through the newspaper or just stared into nowhere, plunged into my thoughts. In the mornings, before starting the day at work, I made coffee and played with the dog, instead of flipping through social networks looking for missed events. As a result, there was a feeling of anxiety. It seemed to me that everyone was going to a party where I was not invited, and around they were discussing things that I was not aware of. I felt FOMO - a feeling of detachment from social processes - for a while, but then everything finally passed, and I relaxed. The circle of people associated with me has greatly diminished, and accordingly there have been fewer plans. I missed something, but did not worry about it. My Saturdays were filled with free time, but I finally felt like the master of my own life.

I resigned myself to all the punctures. These moments demonstrated how to benefit from social media. They focused my attention on the positive elements of social networks - quick access to personal information, eliminating the negative components - the destruction of consciousness from a constant connection with the world of social media. This year, at the end of the test, I did not feel the usual anxiety of returning. I focused on what was really important and didn't worry about everything else.

On September 1, I updated my avatar and quickly scrolled through the Instagram feed. After that, I turned off my computer, made coffee and sat down to read the newspaper. Social media didn't beat me in the end - I beat them.