{"id":967,"date":"2011-06-19T23:56:23","date_gmt":"2011-06-19T13:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/?p=967"},"modified":"2011-06-20T14:42:33","modified_gmt":"2011-06-20T04:42:33","slug":"social-media-rehab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/2011\/06\/social-media-rehab\/","title":{"rendered":"30+ Days in Social Media Rehab"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/2011\/06\/19\/social-media-rehab\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-968\" title=\"20110619_socialmediarehab\" src=\"http:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/wp-content\/uploads\/20110619_socialmediarehab1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/wp-content\/uploads\/20110619_socialmediarehab1.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/wp-content\/uploads\/20110619_socialmediarehab1-300x120.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I cut Social Media from my life cold turkey for 30+ days.<\/p>\n<p>You see, I used to check Facebook and Twitter at least 20 times a day. Half the time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d open up the page and close it in a flash if there was no hint of red indicating a notification. Whenever I was out and there was a small pocket of free time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d jump on the good \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcol smartphone and check up on who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been where, who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been doing what, or who and who have just broken up.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU QUIT?!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I hear the Facebook addicts scream. Look, I just wanted to go back to a simpler time when semi-useful distractions like Facebook and Twitter weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t around, okay? I knew the risks: my Facebook inbox would pile up with unanswered messages; randoms on my Facebook would start questioning \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What happened to that guy who posted random useless links?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; and event organisers would have their plans foiled because I left invitations un-RSVP\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ed. I knew the risks alright. But since I live life on the edge, I seized the day and didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look back&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 for 30 days.<\/p>\n<p>After a few days into it I realised the problem wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really Facebook and Twitter all, but my undying need to constantly \u00e2\u20ac\u02dccheck\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. To quench my thirst for checking I turned to other social apps like Instagram and Foursquare\u00e2\u20ac\u201dapps that I soon avoided too. Oh and no, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not much to do on Foursquare, but you can start stealing Mayorships from your friends, as well as making up places and becoming mayors of those, like The Batcave.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Some observations:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>On the first Saturday everyone was busy so I was home alone and without Facebook and Twitter, it was the most boring and loneliest night of my life lolz<\/li>\n<li>&#8230; and out of the boredom, I was acquainted with <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/LfUrnMCLXAc\" target=\"_blank\">9 Korean girls<\/a> lolz<\/li>\n<li>Deleting all Social Media apps is easy. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s having them on your phone with notifications incrementing, and having the iron will to watch and ignore them separates the men from the boys. And like a hunk of a man that I am, I eyed the notifications badge every so often and laughed at it.<\/li>\n<li>Head felt clearer\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcleansed even. No longer disrupted by quick glances at notifications.<\/li>\n<li>Without Facebook taking up to an hour of my life every week-night, I filled it with productive activities like catching up with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.noob.us\/humor\/the-office-joker-halloween-costumes\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe Office\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/a> and this ancient analogue thing called&#8230; &#8216;<em>reading&#8217;<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Social Media is how the youngsters communicate these days, so giving it up entirely may be difficult. I mean, I have to resort to emailing my friends again?<\/li>\n<li> The net of friends I communicated with became very small without Facebook and Twitter, but with those I still communicated with, conversations were deeper, focused and more enjoyable.<\/li>\n<li> No longer received news as-it-happened on Twitter\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t decide if this is better or worse though.<\/li>\n<li> Read more RSS feeds about my favourite topics: movies, digital and consumer technology<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Overall, life was just a bit boring without Social Media. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like eating a chocolate sundae without the nuts. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good on it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own, but add some nuts and it becomes superb (unless you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re allergic).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I cut Social Media from my life cold turkey for 30+ days. You see, I used to check Facebook and Twitter at least 20 times a day. Half the time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d open up the page and close it in a flash if there was no hint of red indicating a notification. Whenever I was out [&#038;hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.invertmethod.com\/bravo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}