Really, what did we do before social media? A trivial question to some, maybe. But an increasingly important one for those of us logged into it on a daily basis. The thing is, I don’t mean ‘how did we manage before?’. Clearly we just did, and most still do. And we were probably healthier - in all senses - without it, too. But I’m more curious about what we all did with our TIME before social media. A report from GWI in 2018 concluded that people are using social media, on average, for 2 hours and 22 minutes each day. To clarify, this is social media alone. That the average - therefore the norm? - was such a substantial amount of time really struck a chord.
We’ve all been there: perusing Facebook absentmindedly when we are meant to be doing something else - including going to sleep. When there are no notifications, nothing is directly requiring our attention, we continue to scroll through data in a near-stupor. The worrying thing is when we do this during time that should be restful, restorative. True, we can choose to unwind in a myriad of ways. But do we ever really choose this way? The reflex is so instant, and the process so addictive, that we sometimes do not even know we have opened the app. Does this sound familiar? We can say that human beings are both receivers and givers; they are moulded by, but also influence, their environment; they both derive sustenance from, and contribute to, the family unit and society. While in receiving mode we fill ourselves up from a wide variety of sources of knowledge - and, as adults, a lot of it is our choice. Some of these sources are newspapers, documentaries, text books, TV shows, fiction, religious scripture, scientific data. And of course, social media. Whether it feels like a conscious choice or not, we are nevertheless choosing to fill ourselves up regularly, hungrily with the image-rich content of social media. Be it in the form of friends’ opinions, celebrities’ comments, funny memes, interesting articles, pictures of different lifestyles, or disagreements between perfect strangers. But we have a limited capacity, of course. Time and the workings of the human brain dictate that we cannot fill ourselves up endlessly; there’s only so much we can take in and process. So, with all our limitations, and the limitless sources of information available to us, what are we choosing to consume? This is the question we all need to ask ourselves, surely, before blaming and demonising screens or social media like we have no volition. Despite all the powerful influences in the world that act on us every day, we are generally in control of what we ‘digest’ - the information we focus on and absorb. It’s empowering to remember this. When we say we have no time to read, or to study, or to do what we’ve ‘always wanted to do’, are we remembering that we have a choice, and that we actually have lots of hours - the same hours everyone has - every day? Two hours and twenty two minutes spent daily on social media is a long time and quite a frightening number at the end of a week: around sixteen hours. That’s basically a whole day each week. Now, again, if that’s an intentional choice - ok. Everyone makes their choices about their lives. But if, like for the majority, it’s a habit and a ‘filler activity’ (ie would you ever not got out to dinner with friends in order to spend the time on social media instead?), we should probably start to be a little more judicious. But back to my initial question - what did we do with this time before? Were we more productive? Did we spend more time talking to our loved ones? Did we read more? Did we simply watch TV more in that ‘dead’ time between other activities? Soon we won’t have a generation that remembers ‘before’; those two hours and twenty minutes - which will probably grow - will always have been dedicated to social media. But at this juncture, perhaps we need to do ourselves the favour of remembering. What did we always hope or plan to do when ‘we have time’? What made us relax and feel connected before social media? Because it’s not just about maximising hours for productivity - it’s about our wellbeing. If the chemicals realised in the body during exercise, or meditation, are proven to have a positive influence on our mental health, what is the effect of so much social media time instead? Two hours and twenty minutes: it’s your choice. https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2019/01/how-much-time-do-people-spend-social-media-infographic.html
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