Section 1: Description.

I have been tracking my Social Media usage for 48 hours. The two days were a little bit different than a regular day, as I had to work 6 hours both days. Despite work, I managed to log in to Facebook a massive 36 times.  I have been tracking the my use on computer as well as smartphone. My use of Facebook differs a bit from device to device. I mainly use Facebook from my smartphone to check the news flow. It is too inconvenient to use my smartphone to lurk pictures etc. hence I do that on my computer. There is also a big difference between how I communicate on facebook in terms of different devices. As my smartphone notifies me if I have received a message, I tend to answer quickly to these when on my smartphone. On the other hand, I prefer to use my computer for long-term communication. My smartphone is mainly used for sporadic communication.

I generally communicate much more through Facebook than SMS, calls, mails etc. Throughout the tracking period, I decided to check how many messages I have send to my closest friend throughout the last year, which resulted in a whopping 26000 messages.  It is a bit frightening to realize how much time I have been using on Facebook.  Most of the communication is mere pastime and not at all important and I wonder whether the time could have been invested in more important activities.

Throughout the tracking period, I also noted the reason for every social media activity. Most of the cases were a result of plain boredom, but I have realized that fx. Facebook is a tool throughout my everyday life. I use Facebook for information search, work related topics, social events, scheduling, contact informations etc. and is  therefore indispensible to me.

When reflecting upon my social media usage I realize that I spend too much time on doing nothing at all. A lot of the time I spend on Facebook is a stimulation for when I am bored, which isn't beneficial to anything at all. Another finding is that I am available on Facebook constantly as I use my smartphone, when leaving the house. This means that I never totally disconnect from the social medias, which I think isn't healthy. I will try to disconnect an hour a day in the coming weeks.

Another finding is that I believe my friends are available constantly as I am. This means that I do not hesitate to fx. contact a friend in the early morning even though there is a great chance that he is asleep and might wake up if notified on his smartphone. I would never call a friend on his cell phone in the early morning and since the smartphone is closely connected to Facebook, there is a need to act the same way when using Facebook as using the phone.

Tracking my social media usage has been an eye-opener to me. A lot of the time spent on Facebook has been for the wrong reasons. I am looking forward to begin on my social media diet to experience how addicted I am to social medias.