Reflection #2

  1. Completely unplugging from social media would greatly affect my daily routine because I would instantly begin to feel withdrawal. During a typical day, I utilize my iPhone, Facebook, and Twitter as a way to communicate with friends and combat boredom. I would say that I use my iPhone the most for texting and making plans as well as checking up on my Facebook page and managing tweets on Twitter. In between classes, I would feel slightly lost because I typically spend the time surfing the Internet to check up on my social media accounts. I typically have Facebook up on my computer while I’m doing homework so that if someone needs to talk to me they can chat me or I can scroll through the news feed and get updates from what people are doing.
  2. For the unplugging experiment, I chose to “unplug” from Facebook for a day to see what it felt like and what I would miss. I decided upon Facebook because I typically use that the most out of all the social media that I communicate with. The day started out as any normal day would but with a small exception. Instead of checking my news feed at the start of the day, I had about 10 minutes to kill before class that I filled with chatting with my roommates. Since I was unable to use Facebook, I felt oddly un-connected as I was walking to classes and I did not check my Facebook on my iPhone in between classes. When it came to homework time, I did not have my Facebook up on my computer screen so while I felt slightly lost, I also got a lot more accomplished than I regularly do. I was able to stay unplugged for the entire day but I was pretty thrilled to get it back the next day and catch up on what I missed. One of the biggest lessons I learned from this process is that I can survive without my Facebook and it does actually make me more productive. The hardest part about being unplugged from Facebook was that the pull to get on Facebook became much stronger. I felt tempted to break the challenge at least 5 times during the day because I felt strangely unconnected and bored some of the time.
  3. One suggestion that I would make and that I will start to live by as well is that homework is a time for getting stuff done and does not need to be paired with social media. Through my experiment of unplugging completely, I found that I got a lot more homework done in a shorter amount of time when I wasn’t distracted with Facebook. I think that Facebook has a time, place, and purpose but during homework time it is often better to focus.