Being off the socials ...

 

Tomorrow is Plough Monday, and the start of the working year for many people, so not surprisingly we’ve had a slew of articles about how to get off social media/simplify your life/curb your smartphone addiction, and by doing so, improve your work/life balance and perhaps your effectiveness in 2024.

I suppose I could write a smug self congratulatory article about how I abandoned social media, sleep better, and have a better attention span, but I won’t.

Even though I wasn’t a heavy social media user it was harder than you might think.

I have undoubtedly lost contacts and perhaps friendships by more or less abandoning the socials, and of course you do miss out on things – a lot of local community groups only have a Facebook page, or even if they have a web page, Fred who set it up a few years ago doesn’t update it, meaning events are only on Facebook.

Personally, I feel that not being connected has allowed me to slow down and focus on what interests me, and because I’m between projects at the moment perhaps it’s been easier than it might otherwise have been.

Likewise smartphone use.

Even though I’m not a heavy phone user, there are apps I find I need – such as the Australia Post tracking app, or since the banks have abandoned rural Australia, online banking apps, and even apps to let you pay for parking.

And of course, during the pandemic, you needed a phone to be able sign in to locations, and show you were suitably vaccinated. Living on the border of NSW and Victoria as we do, we actually had to have both the NSW and Victoria apps on our phones in order to sign in to cafes etc.

We live in a world where smartphone use is the default.

It’s interesting that in many of these ‘I went back to a dumb phone’ articles how many people admit that they were reliant on partners, friends and lovers to book taxis or place online orders for them, because there were some things they were simply unable to do.

It's like a few years ago in Pula in Croatia where we had great difficulty finding a car park, as most of the parking was app based and involved installing and configuring a Croat language app, switching it over to English and then finding it didn't like my Australian debit card.

So, while I’m sure we all hanker sometimes for a simpler world where dentists sent postcards rather than text messages with embedded links to a web page to remind you to book a checkup, you have to accept that the world has moved on.

For me, the answer is about actively taking control, and only using services where it provides you with an advantage.

For example, I’m quite interested in the whole retro photography thing – I like the discipline of film – but in no way is it a substitute for the immediacy of a mobile phone picture. Even using a digital camera doesn’t provide that immediacy or ease of sharing.

But just because you can share it doesn’t mean you have to.

What I’m really saying is ‘there’s no one size fits all approach’, you need to find what mix of engagement works for you, and finding that will involve a degree of disruption and probably some mis-steps along the way.