Social Media Anonymus

After a very, very…… very long pause this Malteser is back.  With weeks of almost daily encouragement and inspiration from a hidden super hero I finally decided it’s time to face the fear of that flashing cursor against that vast white blank page and write something.  It’s not the creative writing I should be doing but I’m sure Clark Kent will cut me some slack! Right?

Well the nib is rusty but the ink hasn’t quite dried yet so here we go……………….

An article in the August issue of Psychologies Magazine Entitled “Hold Me close” talked about a study that revealed that 60% of people suffer from anxiety about losing or being separated from their phone.  The article said that it’s stronger in men (70%) than in women (61%). It’s a modern age affliction known as nomophobia. The article suggested that readers should try and turn off their phone for an hour a day and slowly incrementing that time to two hours and if possible more.

I looked up from the magazine, that I was holding in my right hand, to look down at my left hand that was holding my Blackberry. I cannot even hold a magazine with two hands because one of them is holding my phone!!!! it suddenly hit me that I am part of that statistic. Very sadly this blogger makes part of that 61% and frankly it’s not exactly something to be proud of!

My life has seen some drastic changes this year and a by-product of these changes was time! Plenty of free time! Free time Galore! I’m pretty sure it sounds blissful when I say that as soon as I leave the office I’m on my own clock. I can walk down the street as slowly as I want to or get home as late as I want to because I simply can. Unfortunately it’s not something I had planned so I did have a hard time adjusting but there was help at hand in the form of Facebook, Twitter, msn, Gtalk, gmail, Hotmail, WhatsApp and BBM, all of which fit nicely on my Blackberry thank you very much.

My intricate relationship with my phone started thanks to my work e-mail. I have a demanding job and being able to read my e-mails and reply while commuting was a great help, sadly I have to say that started to happen also when I was commuting on a Saturday or Sunday to see friends!  When I started to realise that my phone had much more potential than work e-mails one by one I started downloading apps and the more time I had on my hands the more time I had to talk, chat, bbm, like, comment, upload and yes also google up useless information.  I have become inseparable from my phone!  The article struck a chord and when I discussed the topic with some friends I could tell that my reality was not that far off from theirs. It’s like a highly contagious virus that spreads around very quickly and that is a hard one to kill. When I’m home my laptop is constantly on and most of the time I’m doing pretty much what I do on my Blackberry only on a bigger screen so even if my phone is cast aside I am still doing the same thing. This pretty much tells me that I am not addicted to my phone but that my problem lies with social media.

I will not be exploring the reasons behind this phenomenon, there are a lot of more qualified people doing that already. I simply want to be rid of the addiction and reclaim my life back. I have a lot of important things coming up soon and I know that I cannot let my life be ruled by social media so now it’s the time for me to do something about it.

My name is Graziella and I am a social media addict!

I’m going to use my blog as my Social Media Anonymous. I am going to do exactly what I was told to do in that article but I will be taking it a step further I will also switch off my laptop. I will start by doing it for an hour a day and eventually try to stretch that hour and see how far I can go. I know that just like any addict I will have withdrawal symptoms and that I could easily fall back to the path of wrong doing so I’m going to make sure I have a plan of attack. I am going to make a time table for the week ahead of me. I will plan something to do for that hour every single day and will try to stick to that plan as much as possible. Since I have already made plans to meet some people in the next few days I will make it a point to switch my phone off when I meet them and keep my phone off for at least an hour.  The whole plan is to dedicate that time to doing creative stuff or things that will provide me with inspiration and of course catch up with my reading. 

In a week’s time I will be back here reporting my activities and findings. I think it would be far more interesting if I had to report back on a daily basis but I know that it would be like playing with fire!

So my dear friends wish me luck and watch this space :-)

Love,

G

P.S. Thanks Clark for all the motivational pep talks :-)