Media Fast and Binge

During the days that I used as much media as possible, I felt that time passed way faster, but I didn’t feel like getting much of it at all.  Of course, this task wasn’t difficult because it implied overconsuming what I already consume a lot. However, at some point, I felt like I was just wasting my time because most of the things that were on my newsfeed were not relevant at all. I even started to question myself why was I reading and liking posts that at the end I didn’t care about. At this point, I don’t remember any one of them, which makes me think that most of the time that I spent on social media is not adding any value to my life. I found out that I was following tons of people who I didn't care about in any way, but still took the time to read and look at their photos. I found this frustrating because I start thinking about all the time that I could've used more wisely. The only aspect that I really enjoyed about these days was that I took the time to read more than one newspaper in the morning and get informed about news. I usually read the first headlines, but this time I tried to read at least 3 different newspapers and one full article every morning. Besides the news, I didn't find this experience useful or beneficial, since it actually made me think how regularly I am wasting my time instead of doing what is really important or reading what is worth my time. 

During the days that I was able to disconnect from social media and stop using technology, I realized that life is much easier when you live the moment without planning, expecting and overthinking what is happening. I am not going to deny that technology brings us tons of facilities in our daily life, but at a certain point, I think the downsides of technology outweigh the upsides. It is true that it connects us in many ways, especially with the people who is far away from us. In my case, all of my family and friends are in another country, and if it wasn’t for my phone I couldn’t know how everything is going back home. Besides that, I don’t find any other ways in which social media “connect” us as most people think. If we think about it, what does “connection” really means?  Is texting, liking, commenting and sharing a real way of connection and unity between you and your friends? 

Sometimes I just see this as a mindless consumption and a way of pretending that we actually live the lives we show in social media. All of these thoughts came to my mind when I took the time to think about what’s beyond my everyday actions regarding social media. Seriously, what’s the point of having more or fewer likes? Once I start thinking about how my life would’ve been if I was living 40 years ago, it seemed so banal and superficial how we think today. I see it as if we had two different lives, the real one, where we aren’t perfect and we aren’t as smart and pretty, and the pretentious one, where we simply refuse to act like human beings. I was able to realize all of this once I gave myself the chance to think outside of the box and experience myself a different perspective of social media. I think we can't change the way technology has changed our world, but we can be skeptical and critical about what we read, like and share.