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.