Tag Archives: twitter

Preparing to Log Off….

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This Sunday I will be embarking upon a 26.2 day sponsored social media silence*, as part of my Rome Marathon fundraising effort (for which you can sponsor me here, should you so desire). Those of you who know me will know that the social media element of this challenge is arguably going to be harder for me to endure than the marathon itself. It’s no secret (how could it be?) that I’m rather fond of Facebooking and prone to the occasional tweet and Instagram photo opportunity. Indeed it could reasonably be posited that I’m one of those annoying people who live out their lives in the public domain, as if my life offline would simply not be worth living. Well, I’m about to find out if that’s the case.

Whilst every passing second bringing me closer to the moment I go offline is raising my blood pressure and anxiety levels, I am also intrigued and even a tad excited to see how I fare without the crutch of online interaction upon which I have come to rely. Will I, for example, see a sharp increase in creative thinking and productivity that will lead to my writing my very own Magnum Opus? Or will I (more likely) end up rocking in the corner by the end of day one, repeating 140 character tweets to myself on a loop and driving myself mad because there is NOBODY TO SHARE THEM WITH? One thing I’m sure of is that I’ll quickly feel annoyed by everyone around me who is engrossed in their smartphone, just as when I gave up smoking I found being in the company of smokers intolerable. So that will be fun for my boyfriend, friends and colleagues (and will, quite frankly, serve the bastards right for forcing me to do this in the first place).

To surmise: There may be tears. There may be withdrawal. There may be shattered relationships. But by God will there be some good writing material**

*which means no engagement with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or this blog (waaaah)

**either that or (most likely) some dangerous new TV series addictions

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Friends like these

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Today I’ve been trying to remember the world before social media took hold. This shouldn’t have been difficult, considering I pre-date it. And yet it was. I actually struggled to remember how people – myself included – expressed themselves (read also: showed off) to their peers and wider social groups. I’m certain we did use online networks (hazy memories come to mind of painstaking waits for screeching modems to connect, woefully basic Internet chat rooms and a now long-redundant profile on Bebo, the amateur precursor to Facebook), but I can’t honestly remember more than that.

Further rumination on this subject has me wondering if we actually cared as much in the ‘old world’ about what people thought of us and how we were perceived. Or was it, in fact, the dawn of the social media age that was responsible for turning a whole generation (and most likely all subsequent generations) into shallow, self-obsessed egotists who would rather spend their leisure time posting photos to make their friends jealous than actually enjoy whatever it is they’re doing?

I think the reality is that people – children, adolescents and adults alike – have always and will always have an inherent desire to be liked and to feel part of social groups. Before Twitter and Facebook were invented we flirted with rudimentary forms of social networking to extend our reach into such groups. Before those existed we made do with making friends in ‘real life’ situations. Our need to be accepted and popular was just as great, but we just had smaller social circles.

Now that social networks have become stratospheric in their popularity we have grown greedy for more. It’s a natural progression, but a dangerous one. Having hundreds of ‘friends’ on a social networking site can make you feel popular, but if you can count the number who would be there for you no matter what on less than one hand it speaks volumes about the meaning of those ‘friendships,’ and how much homage we should really pay them.

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Thinking about friendship groups and the importance of being accepted reminded me of this group photo from a holiday last year in Windermere. We had such a fantastic time and all got on so well – it’s times like those you realise the importance of having REAL friends who are always there, through the good times and the bad.