Life Without Social Media
Since I deleted all of my social media account, my life seems to get more easier.
I don’t have to check new likes from my post. I don’t have to make a try to reply someone elses comment. I don’t even need to care about someone elses holiday, which their photos were splattered around my home feed.
My life is free from those less important things.
Leaving social media is not easy for everybody. After I quit the socmed, I tried to convince my friend to quit too, and it was so hard.
But, it is up to him. I don’t want to force him to delete his social media account, I just want to convince and also prove, that you can live without it.
We can live without social media.
People always says that if we don’t use social media, we are going to miss the news and the trend.
Well, I don’t have Facebook, Twitter or Instagram anymore, but I still know what’s happening in the world right now.
These days, there are many websites that could give you a current and trending news. Sometimes I check BBC News, Time or The Independent to look up for the newest news and looking up for what’s trending in the world right now.
Or maybe, you can just watch the TV, but I don’t really recommend this way because actually I don’t like watching TV at all.
There are so many television show that give you a bunch of things that doesn’t need or not worth to be watched, especially if you watch it with the kids. In my country, they make bunch of television shows to be a tool to teach ignorance to the public. It’s so messed up.
The point is: you can still available to know what’s happening in the world, even if you don’t have a social media account at all.
You’re outdated. Less knowledge of technology.
People also says that. I don’t use social media and people will sees me as a man who have a long white beard living under the rocks.
Technology blind, means that you have no idea about technology, you don’t deserve to live in the future. Am I have less knowledge about technology if I don’t use social media?
Dr. Cal Newport in his Tedx Talks, said:
Social media is not a fundamental technology. It leverages some fundamental technologies but it’s better understood as this, which is to say it’s a source of entertainment — entertainment product.
The way the technologist Jaron Lanier puts it is that these companies offer you shiny treats in exchange for minutes of your attention and bites of your personal data, which can then be packaged up and sold.
Dr. Cal also add that social media is like a slot machine that give you an unsavory source of entertainment. And we now know that many of the major social media companies hire individuals called attention engineers who borrow principles from Las Vegas casino gambling among other places to try to make these products as addictive as possible. That is the desired use case of these products is that you use it in an addictive fashion because that maximizes the profit that can be extracted from your attention and data.
So it’s not fundamental technologies, it’s the source of entertainment one among many and it’s somewhat unsavory if you look a little bit closer.
Like another source of entertainment, you could make a choice to use it (accept it) into your life or you could just ignore it. It’s all your choice, because not using a social media it’s just same like rejecting one form of entertainment.
Life isn’t social media. Life is what we configure our pages to mean.
You can do a silent productivity without anyone notice what you’re doing. You can be cool or fabulous without any likes or comments. You can thrive and vibe and love on yourself like nothing else matters without the armor of social media.
Back in the 2004, when smartphone was rarely in the hand of people. Facebook isn’t officialy global yet, there are a few old social media like Friendster or MySpace but people didn’t give much attention to it.
Everything was fine; we could take a walk in the park with our partner or fellas without keeping head down to the screen, family dinner was so peaceful without any irritating sound of Facebook friend request notification or we can just have a date with our partner, having a perfect moment below the tree starring at the sky or enjoy the out-focus light of the city, anything without social media or smartphone.
I miss those times.
We can’t back in those peaceful times. We can’t dodge the power of social media these days. But also, you can’t hate it.
Not using the social media, doesn’t make me as an anti.
I’m not an anti-social media people.
Anti-social media people don’t use the social media because they hate social media, they hate the effect of social media. That’s actually good. But it has to be clear that I’m not the same as them.
I don’t hate social media. Why?
Because it’s not necessary. Whatever you hate it or not, the social media will still grow up. You can’t stop it but you can ignore it. If you hate social media, it’s just the same like you hate one of your neighbors but you still want to keep an eye on them because deep inside your heart, you still get attracted to them.
Don’t hate it. Just ignore it. You can live without it. Social media isn’t everything in this world. Don’t waste your time.
Stop pretending to be like another human on the screen. Be yourself as who you are and love it, without likes and comments.
