Detaching from Technology Essay
It is hard to imagine modern life without communication technologies. People use them for their business communication, as well as for a great number of personal options. There are numerous advantages, brought by the introduction and utilization of these technologies. People seem to receive much more freedom, as they are able to check their emails, without being forced to stay in the office, they are able to communicate at any given moment of time, sending messages or making phone calls. Tracking of the necessary data changing in organizations’ databases, availability of all needed resources, maps, and information about anything could be found within a couple of minutes. It all functions easily and quickly, nothing specific is needed, in addition, the costs of all these things went down, increasing the availability of multiple resources to most individuals. Being realistic, it is necessary to admit that there is nothing in this life, that is absolutely positive, in other words, usually, there are negative sides also. Communication technologies are not exceptional, as they distract a huge portion of attention and force people constantly think about sending and receiving new messages, they make people live at a high tempo and be constantly stressed. In addition, individuals get dependent upon various social platforms, and soon they are not able to spend a day without using them.
In order to check the degree of my personal dependence, I decided to choose one day, when I will not visit and look through my page at Facebook. To be honest I am to admit that I have a lot of friends there and I am used to checking their news, their photos, and sending and answering messages there. I have never considered this kind of communication distracting or annoying. I think I have enjoyed it most of the time. At the same time, I noticed that I always lack time for doing everything I need during the day and I am constantly in a hurry. So I decided to take one day during the week and stay disconnected from my Facebook account. From the very morning, when I woke up and did all the morning staff, I remembered that I should not look through the account page and news there. There seemed to be no problem to me and I started to do the usual things, I am to do during the day. I think was rather concentrated on my studies, as some of the tasks, which usually demand a couple of hours, were finished within just an hour or a little bit more. Several times I wanted to make a small pause like I used to do and check my account because I was wondering about the news there and new posts of my friends, but I did not do that. Thus I came to the conclusion that social platforms are really distracting and time –consuming, moreover you don’t notice, how it takes you time when you just read posts and distribute your likes to the people you know and you don’t know at all. Refusing from Facebook in the morning did help me to focus on some important tasks and they were finished at least 1.5 times quicker.
Taking into consideration that I managed to do the important things and save at least two hours, I decided to call my friends and go out with them. We met and had such a nice time and discussed so many things, I could immediately see the reactions of my friends. The themes, which we discussed were not limited to usual online messages, like for example – Hey, what are you doing? Have you seen this movie? And how do you like this clip? Etc. The conclusion I made at this moment of my day was that communication via Facebook is not able to replace real interaction with my close people. Face-to-face communication is precious and as long as you have the opportunity to meet your friends, it is better to stop sending them messages with various smiles, rather it is better to meet them. This kind of communication should not be turned into something artificial and a part of a fashion image, close people should remain close to you. At this moment I felt satisfied with my decision not to open Facebook that day.
There is also a portion of negativity, related to social platforms, people post their photos and expect that this photo would hit as many likes as possible, if it does not happen, they start being too critical of themselves and experience a lot of negative emotions. As long you don’t stop doing it, you are not able to realize the real effect, that media has upon you. When you see photos of your friends your just people, whom you knew before, and you start to think that they are more successful/beautiful/loved, etc. in their lives, you are forced to compare your own life and conclude that it is not that perfect, as their lives seem to be. Thus in addition to wasting time looking through somebody’s photos and posts and compromised meetings with your really close and dear people, you are depressed and lose some portion of self-esteem.
Overall, having to spend a day without my favorite Facebook platform, I came to several important conclusions: I will not substitute real communication with my friends with interactive communication, I know a great way to save my time and not get distracted from something important I am to do, finally, I do not need to be so much involved into the world of digital communication in order to feel myself happier, more satisfied and self-assured.
References:
Goldsztajn, I. (2016). 3 Reasons to Detach From Social Media (& a Few Not To). LIFE
Wiliams, R. (2012). Why It’s So Hard to Unplug From the Digital World. Our digital virtual world may be overshadowing our real personal world.
