In a move to again ween myself off of adding to the noise we call Social Media, I’ve been refraining from logging into my different Social Media accounts.
Numerous times over the last couple years, I’ve found myself getting caught in the noise and swirl of posting, reading, liking, +1′ing, then pulling back to de-clutter. More specifically, I found myself drawing out the night, clicking through the next page, back to my own, clicking through the feed, etc; like flipping through the channels on TV (and for that reason, I got rid of mine).
After time away, I always talk myself into stepping back into the swirl, mostly for idle reasons such as not wanting to lose track of so-and-so. What I realized this time around, is there’s really not anyone I’d miss from the social networks that I don’t see or talk to in real life; the rest of the interactions are just noise.
But, since I’ve been in the habit of posting random thoughts during the day, I thought I’d create a catch-all for my little blips of thought, posting them to a single page. This is mostly for my reference, just to see in retrospect a collective of the idle words I spew out into the land of cyber noise.
I’m guessing most of my posts will either be complaints or attempts to try and get people to like me more, but I suppose we’ll see :)
The main anti-thesis of posting to the cyber swirl; the thought that most of the people I’ve really looked up to over the last 5 years never open social media accounts, and if they do, it’s mostly just to be open to other people’s communications. Hey, it’s not like I don’t have a phone or email o_O I just don’t want to be stuck in the confines of the cyber swirl; a place the masses barely venture from.
So… posted below, you’ll see random edits containing the date and time of thoughts I would’ve posted to [G+/FB/Twitter] but won’t ever make it into the land of idle time.
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– 112911 – 2:24pm [from work] – So, I’ve been using the Apple Magic Mouse for the last couple days at work, and I must say, I love it. Hello Christmas present :D
– 112911 – 4:37pm [from work] – “disabling SSL is probably a bad idea.. just saying”; best internal comment within the cPanel XMLAPI.php o_O
– 112911 – 5:20pm [from work] – Man, I forgot how much I love Pistachios; so tasty! Thanks cPanel for keeping the breakroom stocked :)
– 112911 – 10:20pm [from home] – *note to self, turn off #cloudflare caching when changing CSS, otherwise pull hair out O_O
– 113011 – 12:10pm [from work] – My cry today. This song brings me back in - http://goo.gl/Zv4bG
– 113011 – 12:58pm [from work] – and here comes the super AC in our office. Always gets REALLY cold this time of day; I’m talking like 60 degrees #icebox #ireallydolovemyjob
– 113011 – 3:28pm [from work] – So hard to believe its already Dec. Now that I’m not in IA, I realize I used weather as a relative calendar – #noseasonsanymore
– 120111 – 12:01pm [from work] – I love Google Reader. Makes my reading so much more efficient. Plus its funny that I just posted this at 12:01, on 12/01 :)
– 120111 – 12:46pm [from work] – 2 more loves worth noting; White Peony tea and reading. Just got some great loose tea, and started LOTRs Two Towers last night :) #ilovelife
– 120111 – 4:33pm [from work] – Plesk errors during installation are horrible; ERROR: The required version ’3.11.0′ was not found on the server – version of what? #nohelp
– 120111 – 5:44pm [from work] – all I’ve got to say is – 0118 999! 88199, 9119 725 [short pause] 3 – thanks Dave :D
– 120111 – 9:09pm [from home] – granola for life, dawg.
– 120211 – 8:44am [from home] – MAN, I REALLY hate being able to hear my neighbors through my walls. Buying a house looks sweeter and sweeter by the day.
– 120211 – 08:46am [from home] – cutting my morning short to go pick up my new device – http://goo.gl/2PQvU – energy (and money) saving + nerdy project, here I come :)
– 120211 – 08:49am [from home] – (cont) oh, and while I’m at it, I’ll be picking up some ear plugs. Is $1000/mo on an apartment worth it, opposed to a house?
– 120211 – 11:58pm [from work] – Ah, fresh ear plugs. They just seem to wear out over the weeks. But none seem to block ALL noise. Maybe an office and earplugs. #someday
Thus ends my experiment. I understand my fascination with posting to [G+/FB/Twitter]; its mostly imaginary, in dreaming that people will think I’m any more cool, or that I’m really any more known through any said social network; the truth is, I’m not.
another thought… In not using social networks during this experiment, I also realized that I use social networks to pretend like I’m actually talking to someone. I know I often times need to get thoughts out of my head to process, and I think social networks have aided in being a “listening ear”, so to speak; or rather, pretending that people are actually listening to my output. But is it the listening that’s important, or just that I’m talking? Anyway, I don’t miss the social networks, posting or browsing, although I do know of several people that I won’t interact with other than through what they post, unless I’m intentional with hanging out face to face (which is a good thing).
thought 2… aren’t social networks really just an accepted form of voyerism? Like viewing pornography, except instead of cheapening what it takes to engage sexually, its cheapening what it takes to engage relationally – reason #2 I don’t want to be a part of them, at all.
