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G E N E R AT I O N P R O C R A S T I N AT I O N ‘I’ll do it later... I just need to do this first.’ The famous last words of many young people across the world today. That really important thing that you need to do is just about the last thing on your to do list. You would rather do anything else instead; play guitar, read a book, do sit ups or look for something that you lost down the back of the sofa about 3 years ago. Suddenly, anything has become far more important than what you really need to be doing. Want to hide from your responsibilites? With an online world just a few clicks away, it’s easier than ever to forget about the problems and pressures of reality. Online you can be who you want to be, with no questions asked. The internet contains more websites, blogs and social networking sites than is possible to visit. It presents so many opportunities for creativity and showcasing talent but is not always used to it’s full potential. Used in an innovative way, blogs can create a job with social networking sites
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such as Facebook and Twitter to connect with your audience. The majority of people use these sites to keep in touch with friends and family, exchanging messages and photos easily. The problem is that without the correct security settings, anyone can see your information. Why would they want to see your information? It could be an innocent interest or it could be for more sinsiter reasons. Friends and family aren’t the only connections being made, with more online friendships being formed than ever before. These could be random people that we have never met before, but somehow we develop a connection with them. We trust them with details about our lives but how do we know that they are who they say they are? Many social networking users are lulled into a false sense of security and view the internet as a place to escape, where they have a ‘friend’ waiting. Online you may find yourself less worried about hurting people’s feelings as there will be no immediate
consequences - it’s a virtual world afterall. The virtual police won’t come knocking at your door - you can step away from this world at any time you choose. But for some people, it’s too hard. With constant updates from around the world, there is always something new to look at and the worry that if you don’t keep checking, you will miss out on something important. It’s because of this worry that people spend hours on end following and watching social feeds. This feeling has been developed through out the current generation’s time at school. Nobody wants to be the unpopular kid in the corner. To prevent this from happening, the urge to keep updated with other people’s lives has developed thanks to technology. A new spectator sport has been created. This is a problem because it is encouraging the young to sit back and watch other people’s lives, rather than act on making theirs better. Through the popularity of social media, young people are becoming lazy.
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Through the popularity of social media, young people are becoming lazy. Why go out in the cold when you can access a world that you have control of, from the comfort of your home?
Why go out in the cold when you can access a world that you have control of, from the comfort of your home? We are now a generation of dreamers, spending the majority of our time in a virtual world. We are a generation of stalkers, watching other peoples triumphs and falls, rather than living our own lives. We are a generation of sheep, following trends for guidance and always seeking aproval from others. The worst thing is that we have become so ‘good’ and social networking online, when put back into old fashioned face to face situations we feel awkward. With online interaction, there is time to think about your reply and craft it. In person, there is no safety net - once you have said something, you can’t take it back or erase it from the send box. Relying on auto correct programmes causes the wrong message to be sent. Depending on the context, a wrong word can change the message to have a humorous meaning. But in other situations it can cause anger, panic and push people to say things or act in ways which they will regret later.
There are now even websites that are dedicated to finding examples to poke fun at. These include relationship auto fails: ‘When you’re home I’m happier’ to ‘When you’re gone I’m happier’, ‘It’s Friday so screw the gym, I’m getting Pringles’ to ‘It’s Friday so screw the gym, I’m getting pregant’, ‘I think we need to spend some time at Pat’s’ to ‘I think we need to spend some time apart’ and ‘I was just thinking that I really want to bulk up’ to ‘I was just thinking that I really want to break up’. These awkward situations could have been avoided if we didn’t atuomatically rely on technology and made the effort to check everything before it is sent. If we took a little more time to look at the smaller details things could be different. We now live in an age where everyone is too busy and patience is thin and there’s no sign of anything changing soon. Social networking is here to stay. //
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Checking social media sites such as Youtube, Twitter and Facebook has now become as much a part of our everyday as brushing our teeth. What happened before they existed? How else would you have caught your boyfriend flirting with that girl or found out that your Mum’s cousin’s best friend’s cat has had kittens? Love it or hate it, we all secretly enjoy that social media gives us the gossip with none of the hassle. But what happens when you give it all up and go back to the ‘dark ages’? Can you stay connected without the apps? Divide challenged University of Lincoln student, Tom Bishop, to undertake a social media detox for 7 days. How hard could it be...?
I have never felt like this before. I’m guessing it’s what it feels like to have an addiction.
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Day 1 Today at 3pm I decided to put my interaction with the social networking world on hold. I’ve decided to shut off all interaction because I’m interested to see what it feels like to be withdrawn from social media. I have deleted access to the 3 social networking sites that I regularly use (Twitter, Facebook and Path) on both my mac and mobile phone. Hopefully this will make it harder for me to access them if I’m feeling weak. It already feels odd to be without the interaction that I’m used to being so readily available on the internet. Today instead of sitting in my room logged into Facebook and Twitter I went to my friend Jack’s apartment. We sat in the kitchen talking with his flat mates, whilst watching him play Skyrim on his Xbox. I usually talk to them online through Facebook chat, but today I found that talking to them in person was a lot easier and conversation flowed more fluently. I really enjoyed their company. When I got home, before I cooked myself dinner, I found myself fighting the urge to log onto and check Facebook before going into the kitchen. This was a very odd feeling because I have never felt like this before. I’m guessing it’s what it feels like to have an addiction. To stop
myself from giving in to the temptation, I moved into the kitchen to sit with my flat mates. They were watching TV and talking. Our apartment hasn’t been upgraded to wireless internet yet, so I knew that if I stayed in the kitchen I wouldn’t be able to go on any of the social networking sites. As we were watching TV, the urges started. I kept feeling like I wanted to tweet about what I was watching. Usually if I am enjoying a show I will tweet about it to share with other people what I like about it, look through the trending topics and follow interesting people who are watching the same show. Sometimes I reply or retweet people if I want to start a conversation with them. It’s now 11.40pm and I’m currently sitting in my bed, resisting the pull of social networking. Usually when I get ready to go to bed, I’ll log onto Facebook and Twitter to kill time before I feel sleepy enough to fall asleep. As I was brushing my teeth tonight I felt as if I wanted to tell my followers about my day. Most of the people I interact with regularly on social networking sites, I have met online. I’m worried that by going through this experiment I’m going to be
isolated, cut off and unable to reach these people. I’ve been a member of Facebook and Twitter for almost 4 years now and have slowly built up an online presence for myself. During this time I have become closer to a few of my followers, becoming what I would consider to be friends rather than just online acquaintances. I think this is because we have been connected on several social networking sites and so get to find out so much about each other. I have even shared my phone number with a few people! I have spoken to these people for hours on end, like they were friends I’d known for years. I have spoken to them about my life, feeling that even though we may never meet, we have some sort of connection. Whilst I undertake this social detox, I doubt that many of my 575 Twitter followers will miss me. It is weird though, because I feel that many of the people I talk to online are probably some of the people who know me best. When I am online I can be myself. I know that this is how I should behave all of the time, but online I am a much more confident version of myself. I don’t know anything about pyschology, but I’m guessing it has something to do with that.
Today I spoke to my flatmate, Tim, about his opinion on my relationship with social networking. He thinks that this week away from social media will do me some good. Tim thinks that I’m addicted to social networking, and I think I agree. When I go out with my friends, my instant reaction is to tag our location on Facebook. It’s as if I want people to know where I am, but does the world really need to know about this? Probably not. I am currently feeling more and more inclined to tweet than I am to update my Faceboook status or log in to path. By not logging onto Facebook this evening I have been able to accomplish a lot more with my time. I have been working on my university work in the kitchen, surrounded by my flat mates. Usually I would stay in my room alone but tonight we have come up with some great ideas that I wouldn’t have been able to come up with by myself. That’s enough for tonight, good night.
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Day 2 Today I woke up at 7.40. My first thought was ‘I’ll just check Facebook’. I really had the urge to log onto the social networking sites to find out (if anything) had been going on overnight as I had slept. Fighting this urge, I decided to get up and start my day. After a quick shower I decided to try a new morning plan. Instead of looking on Facebook when I woke up, I would tidy my room. It didn’t take very long to tidy and once again I found myself with nothing to do. I don’t usually eat breakfast, but I actually had time to eat breakfast before my 10 o’clock lecture today. I feel as though I am making much more use of my time and mornings. Over 24 hours into this challenge and I feel I am progressing well, managing to fight the urge to socially interact online. As the morning progresses, I keep thinking about how much more time I seem to have. I didn’t realise how much time I waste on countless moments checking Facebook, compared to now where I am free to enjoy my morning and get work done. It’s only day 2 and already
I am feeling guilty about much of my day I actually waste on social networking. On my walk to university, I suddenly thought about tweeting about stopping for a coffee. Usually in this situation I would go to Starbucks, log onto their wi-fi and tag myself at the location and let people know what I was drinking. This is where I would use path too, by either taking a photo or video of the place I have visited. Those locations would all link together on path, creating a social geographical map of all my location and visit history along with what I was doing there. I’m carrying this diary with me so that when I have time to spare I can write about how I’m feeling, rather than being tempted to go on social networking sites. Currently I’m sitting in my university building by myself, waiting for a lecture to begin. This is usually where I would kill some time and log onto social networks, update my status and communicate with the world. I’m determind that won’t be happening today though!
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Day 3 Today I’ve not felt the effects of withdrawal from social media. I met my friend Heather at Café Nero this morning before our dissertation briefing and review. Whilst there, I sat waiting for her to arrive by myself for a while. I felt an urge to quickly check onto twitter and update my tweets. Then again to log onto Facebook and tag my location. After the urges I experience at the coffee shop, I haven’t really had a desire to update my status throughout the rest of the afternoon. I’ve kept myself busy with university work as well as going shopping for food as I have planned to host dinner party tomorrow evening. Although I did quite well earlier today, tonight I am really struggling to stop myself from logging onto social networking sites. I am alone in my flat as all of my flat mates have gone out. Earlier this evening I went to see my friends Ben, Lucy and Lauren, and we played Skyrim. The hardest part was leaving; when they wanted to go to bed I didn’t want to go back my flat to be alone . Sitting by myself now, I’m slowly starting to go insane. I just want to log on to one of the social networking sites and talk to someone. As I’m still allowed to use my mobile phone, I texted a few friends but no one is replying. Does no one use their phones anymore? Are they all sitting on Facebook, talking without me? I should have gone out tonight. Good night.
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I’m slowly starting to go insane. I just want to log on to one of the social networking sites and talk to someone.
Day 4 I woke up late today. I had a really important lecture at 11 but I just felt like I couldn’t get out of bed. After a quick shower I felt more awake and headed off to meet Heather in the studio. After all of that rushing, when I got to the studio I found that my lecturer was running half an hour late so I was sat in there with nothing to do. It was here that I got my first craving of the day to log onto twitter and update my followers. The longer I do this challenge, the more that I’m realising I only log onto twitter and Facebook when there was nothing else to do. I think it’s a good way to keep up with a social life and to make use of those few spare moments I have. Since giving up social networking, I have found that I have had much more free time, allowing more time for uni work, socialising and cooking. Tonight I’m going to cook honey roast gammon for some friends which I’ve invited over for a dinner party. After the lecture finished, I set off to Morrisons to buy food for tonight, including olives and Coca Cola. As soon as I got home, I began cooking. I wanted to try a new recipe that my flat mate had recommended to me which involved boiling the Gammon in Coca Cola. Once I had prepped the meat and set it to slowly cook in the Coca Cola, I had a few hours to kill. Usually my first thought would be to check the social networking sites to pass some time.
Instead, I decided to be productive with my time and do the mountain of washing up that had accumulated over the past few days. This was a much better use of my time as I managed to get all of the washing up done with plenty of time to spare - I felt really good after doing it. Whilst I was washing up, Lucy text me to let me know that she wouldn’t be coming tonight as she had too much Uni work. This is a shame, as I really like Lucy but haven’t had a great deal of time to talk to her recently. I guess that means more gammon for us now though! At 5pm it was time to take the gammon off the boil, drain it, skin it, score it, place the cloves into the fat and cover it in honey. Then I wrapped tin foil over the top and put it into in the oven for the last hour of cooking. Next, I started washing the potatoes and because I was going all out to impress my friends, I wanted to make both roast potatoes and mash. Between 4 people I estimated that a whole bag of potatoes would be enough. By the time I had washed peeled and chopped the potatoes it was getting on for 5.15. My flat mates came back from their lecture and came into the kitchen wanting to cook their dinner. Beginning to panic that I wasn’t going to get the food on the table by 6, I let my flat mates help me prepare the part boiled potatoes for roasting, smashing them in the pan to ‘roughen up’ the edges before
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sprinkling semolina on them to make them lovely and crispy - my favourite. At 5.40 Tasha and Jack decided to arrive early and watch me stress out. The oven in my student flat is possibly the worst oven I have ever used – it’s rubbish. Never the less, I managed to get all of the food cooked and served by 6.15 which wasn’t too bad considering I only cook for one person usually (just myself). Everyone loved the meal - gammon night was a huge success! We ate all of the food and there were clean plates all around. Jack and Tasha had brought dessert with them as their end of the bargain but we were feeling very full. We decided to go for a walk to digest our food and to make room for the dessert. As I had done the washing up earlier, I was left with spare time. Tim suggested going to the pub for a pint, so we went. Through out the night I hadn’t been thinking of tweeting or tagging in on Facebook. I think that I was too busy having a good time with my friends to care. On our way to the pub I met 3 of my friends on their way up to Kind bar. They had invited me earlier in the day but I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be hosting my dinner party for. As the dinner party finished early, and I wasn’t wasting my time by sitting on social networking
sites, I had spare time so agreed to pop in for a quick drink on my way back from the pub with Tim. After showing Tim the delights of Widows Cullen, I decided to take James, Danielle and Helen up on their offer of a drink in Kind bar. Somehow this turned into a few drinks and then James suggested that we should go to a club. I didn’t have anything else to do so decided to go with them for a spontaneous night out. By the time we got to the club, my memory of the night gets a little fuzzy. I can remember drinking quite a lot of vodka and drinking several shots with the girls. When we decided to call it a night, I asked if I could stay in their spare room rather than going home. They agreed, but before we went back to their house, we stopped at Chicken Cottage. I spent the last of my money on a 5 piece chicken wings and a Pepsi. It was fatty and greasy - It tasted great! When we got back to their house we sat in their kitchen talking for ages. This felt quite weird because although I count them among my close friends, we don’t talk face to face that often. I usually talk to them on Facebook chat or Twitter but being with them in person was great and much more fun. Tonight I felt much closer to them, it was a nice change.
I usually talk to them on Facebook chat or Twitter but being with them in person was great and much more fun.
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Day 5 Today I woke up in a strange place; my friend’s spare room. It took me a few moments to realise where I was and remember what had happened last night. I can’t remember what time it was but the first thing I did was text Danielle to find out if she was awake and also to thank her for letting me stay the night. I decided to head downstairs and wait for someone to wake up. After a few minutes of silence, I felt the urge to log onto Facebook. It was then that Tasha came out of her room and spotted me. The last time she had seen me was at my dinner party so she was a bit confused to see me in her house. As I explained last night’s events, the rest of the house began to appear. It was really nice to see everyone so early in the morning and actually chat to them face to face. The rest of the day was the complete opposite. I sat alone, doing uni work. This became very boring very quickly. I had even sat in the kitchen, hoping that some of my flat mates would come back and talk to me. I wanted to just talk to
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someone in person. This was probably the lowest I had felt all week. I came so close to logging in to Facebook. ‘No one will know…’ I thought to myself, but I resisted! Deciding to distract myself and avoid breaking my social networking detox, I saw that there was some washing up on the side. Whilst doing the washing up, my Dad rang me to say that he was picking up my step brother from Uni in Hull and that they could pick me up as they were passing through on their way back home. It was really good to see my dad and his side of the family as I hadn’t seen them since New Years eve. My Dad didn’t know about my social media detox, but after a while he commented, asking where my phone was and if I was going to tweet what I was up to. After I explained, he laughed and said that it will probably do me some good. I agree. We enjoyed a really good meal out with the family. My Dad and step mother updated me, telling me what I had been missing out on at home and about my
brother getting drunk. After my Dad had dropped me back to my flat, I continued doing Uni work into the night, only stopping to call my mum at 10PM to have a catch up. After almost giving in to temptation earlier, I have managed to stay away from my computer to focus upon a possible re-design of my website. As this idea is mainly based on photography, I spent the rest of the evening making models and setting up test shoots which I then mailed over to my web developer to look at. Looking back, there has been one thing I haven’t missed about social networking. This is the constant annoying updates from fellow course mates usually brown nosing each other and constant updates about their work, life and photos of themselves. This has made me realise how much I’m guilty of it myself. I’d never thought about it like that, but maybe my constant tweets could be causing others to feel annoyed.
Looking back, there has been one thing I haven’t missed about social networking. This is the constant annoying updates from my course mates usually brown nosing each other and constant updates about their work, life and photos of themselves.
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Day 6 I woke up pretty late today, as I didn’t get to sleep until the early hours of the morning. I felt really refreshed and motivated to do my Uni work. By the time 5pm rolled round, I decided to take a well-earned break. I wanted a quick ‘pick me up’ and thought that an espresso from Starbucks would do the job. When I arrived in Starbucks it was still quite busy. After ordering, I decided I wanted to sit near the window at the front as the back of the shop was a bit dingy and over crowded. The chairs were stacked on the table I wanted to sit at so I took one of them down. As I sat down, a very rude Starbucks employee told me that this area of the shop was closed and that I would have to move to another area of the shop or get out. The way in which she spoke to me pissed me off no end, as it sounded like she was talking to a small child. Not wanting to cause a confrontation, I collected my things and moved to the back of the shop where I remained for a good 40 minutes writing up an email of complaint. I sent it to Starbucks’ customer care team, telling them about the way I had been treated in their store. This is the point where I broke my social media detox. I felt so outraged. I just needed to vent my anger to someone. Upon logging in I was bombarded with 27 notifications which had built up from the past 6 days. After writing the status concerning Starbucks I instantly felt a lot better, regaining my calm and logged off. I still feel outraged by the events but am not happy with how I handled it — I should have told the woman where to go!
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Day 7 After going to bed last night on such a low point, I woke up feeling much better. I spent the morning doing Uni work, but by about 1.30pm I decided that I needed a change of scenery. I packed a few things and headed off to Starbucks, crawling back for more of their overpriced coffee. Today has been the most miserable day of the week. The constant rain, coldness and wind meant my walk to Starbucks was not an enjoyable one. At Starbucks I managed to grab a seat in their window, probably the best seat in the shop. After my first drink I decided to stay for a second as the weather outside was slowly getting worse - It began to snow! This time I ordered a tall chai tea latte. This week has been interesting. I’ve had a lot more time to think and do normal things (e.g. eating breakfast) which I would have usually left out in favour of checking Facebook. I will go back to using social networking sites, but I think I have a different attitude now. I just made a phone call to my mum to let her about my plans to go without my phome for the next week. I’m going to email her my flat mates numbers in case of an emergency... //
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