Social Media Fast II

March 18, 2023

On March 2, Texas Independence Day, I wrote a post detailing my two week hiatus from social media (Facebook, email, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) and promised an update. Click Here to view it

I am still off all the social media apps except email which I found I cannot live without. It’s the main Master Gardener communication transport. I try to limit myself to checking 3 times a day but am not successful very often.

Since then I’ve started weaning off the news because all it does is upset me and there is nothing I can do about it.

I cancelled my Economist subscription and am subscribing to the local Dallas Morning News instead. I can’t do anything about what is happening in the Ukraine or Cambodia for that matter and on a day to day basis it does not affect me very much. However, the local news does affect me.

On top of that I don’t turn on the TV news and if Gwen turns it on I try to ignore it.

I am not any calmer yet but Gwen’s ongoing battle with broken kneecap and PSP has been very stressful lately.

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Posted by molson46

Social Media Fast Results

March 2, 2023

Two weeks ago I started a social media fast. Except for email the fast was successful in that I did not use any of the social media apps. See my previous post of click here

Of course I had lots of help from external sources. Gwen broke her kneecap on January 27 and I’m her sole caregiver. This, I have little free time to browse social media apps. Plus:

  • Elon is forcing me to use the Twitter app by shutting down third party interfaces. I tried the Twitter app and I don’t like it. In the past
  • Living without Tumblr is not hard since I rarely opened it either. 
  • I only opened Facebook late at night during tv commercials. Thus giving up Facebook was easy.
  • Instagram was the hardest for me to give up. I generally opened it every morning to view the latest photos and post photos of my own. I am not sure if I will start using it again.  
  • Mastadon is a fairly new social media site for me. I had just created an account and started using it when I decided to try the fast. I will probably experiment with it for art least the near term.

Email was a failure for me. I had decided to only check email three times a day but my friends, family, and Master Gardener cohorts would message me and ask why I had not responded to an email. I finally gave and started checking it periodically. Perhaps I should have included messages in my social fast.

What’s next?

  • Digital news including the Economist. Instead maybe the Dallas Morning News
  • Games on my phone. They serve the same purpose as social media apps for me. If I have a few minutes or just don’t feel like doing anything I play a game. Instead I could just think

Check back in a couple weeks to find out how I’m progressing on this journey.

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Posted by molson46